April 1983 US Embassy bombing

On April 18, 1983, a delivery van driven by a suicide bomber and carrying about 400 pounds of explosives drove up to the United States Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. It parked under the portico at the very front of the building, where it exploded. the front section of the embassy collapsed, killing 63 people. 17 of these were Americans, and 8 of them worked for the Central Intelligence Agency. More than 100 others were wounded.

The deadliest attack on a US diplomatic mission up to that time left many wondering what would come next. Just six months later, 241 US serivcemen would be dead after another truck bombing. And 18 months after the first embassy attack, in September 1984, a car bomb hit the new, more secure US Embassy in East Beirut, killing 2 Americans and 20 Lebanese.

It is believed the Iranian- and Syrian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah is responsible for the attack, claiming it under the name "Islamic Jihad," an alternate name for the group in the 1980's.