As a result of the double bombing in Lebanon’s capital Beirut in 1983, 241 American service members were killed, as well as 58 French military personnel and six civilians. On top of all these deaths, hundreds more were injured. In October that year, a water tanker was driven by a suicide bomber into the US Marine barracks. Approximately 1,000 kilograms of explosives were detonated. The attack was claimed by the Islamic Jihad which has links with Iranian regime.
Two decades later, Iran regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) memorialised the bombing with a monument honouring the attack. It is located in the Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery in Iran’s capital city in a section for the “Martyrs of the Islamic World”.
Three decades after the attack, the IRGC has finally been designated as a terrorist organisation by the Treasury Department in the United States.
Iran regime’s policies of exporting terrorism and igniting wars across the region was in place at that time. It wanted to have an IRGC central command base in Lebanon which could also be used by its local mercenaries.
At the beginning of the eighties, the Supreme Leader at that time, Khomeini, sent out the IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaee to plan terrorist attacks in Lebanon.
The Lebanese Hezbollah managed to gain control of the Sheikh Abdullah Base in 1983 and it later became the IRGC’s command center in the country. From here, the Hezbollah units managed by Iran were able to direct the bombings in Beirut along with the notorious terrorist Imad Mughniyah.
The IRGC issued the orders for the Beirut bombings to Ali Akbar Mohtashemipour who was the Iran regime’s ambassador to Syria at that time. He passed the order on to the IRGC agents in Beirut.
The Islamic Jihad organization that claimed the attack was controlled by the IRGC and the Lebanese Hezbollah and it acted as a special ops branch.
The Iranian regime is proud of its terrorist attacks and makes no secret of them. In the media, it flaunts its actions and praises those who carry attacks out in Iran’s name. For example, on the Rasekhoon website, a state-run media outlet, the attacks in Beirut were dealt with like this: “Two massive explosions, six minutes apart, levelled the US Marines command center and the interventionist French forces command base … The heroic reaction… against US and French bases in Beirut delivered a heavy blow to Western powers and forced them to leave Lebanon in a humiliating manner.”
A judge in the United States issued Iranian regime with orders to pay damages and interest of more than $800 million to the families of those that were killed during the 1983 attack. There have been several other court rulings for this matter and Iran has filed for appeals that have been rejected.
Although it has taken decades, the IRGC has finally been designated as a terrorist group. It has been able to hide the extent of its terrorist activities for a very long time, but its impunity has now ended. At last.
Source » ncr-iran