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BEIRUT: At about 6:25 a.m. on Oct. 23, 1983, Beirut and its suburbs were shaken, as far as its mountainous regions, by what seemed almost a muffled explosion. 

People thought it was an earthquake, but seven minutes later the city and its surroundings were again shaken by a second, much more massive blast. 

I was working for the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir as a war correspondent at the time. Beirut was besieged, in its southern suburbs, the mountains and the Kharoub region, by clashes between the Progressive Socialist Party and its allies on one hand, and the Lebanese Forces on the other, in what was known as the “Mountain War.” 

The south of the country was also the scene of armed resistance by Lebanese fighters against the Israeli occupation. These fighters had links to leftist parties and previously with Palestinian factions. 

Multinational forces, including the Americans, French and Italians, had been stationed in Beirut following the withdrawal of the leadership and forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as a result of Israel’s aggression against Lebanon including its occupation of Beirut in 1982. 

Within a few minutes of the blasts, it became clear that the headquarters of the US Marines on Beirut’s Airport Road, and the base for the French contingent in the Jinnah area, had been hit by two separate suicide attacks. The unidentified bombers had stormed two fortified locations with trucks packed with tonnes of explosives.

The attack on the US base killed 241 American military personnel — 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers — and wounded dozens. The bombing of the French military site killed 58 French paratroopers and more than 25 Lebanese. 

The attacks were the second of their kind in Beirut; a suicide bomber had targeted the US embassy in Ain Al-Mraiseh six months earlier, on April 18, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans and 35 Lebanese. 

The damage was enormous at the headquarters of the Marines. Four layers of cement had collapsed into piles of rubble, fires were burning, and there was a lot of screaming amid the blood, body parts and confusion. This is what we journalists could see amid the chaos in the immediate aftermath, and what sticks in my memory more than 40 years later. 

The night before, a Saturday, the Marines had been partying, entertained by a musical group that had traveled from the US to perform for them. Most were still asleep when the bomb exploded. 

No group claimed responsibility for the bombings that day, but a few days later As-Safir published a statement it had received in which the “Islamic Revolution Movement” said it was responsible. 

About 48 hours after the bombing, the US accused the Amal Movement and its splinter group, Islamic Amal, led by Hussein Al-Moussawi, of being responsible for the attack. According to reports in local newspapers at the time: “The planning for the bombing took place in Baalbek, and the truck used was seen parked in front of an Amal Movement office.” 

The US vice president, George H.W. Bush, visited Lebanon the day after the attack and said: “We will not allow terrorism to dictate or change our foreign policy.” 

Syria, Iran and the Amal Movement denied any involvement in either of the bombings. 

French authorities responded to the attack on its forces by sending eight military jets to bomb the Sheikh Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, where they said “Iranian elements are stationed.” They stated at the time “the raids killed 200 people.” 

An official from Islamic Amal denied that Iran had a compound in the Baalbek region, but added that his group’s association with “the Islamic revolution in Iran is the association of a nation with its leader, and we are defending ourselves.”

On Nov. 23, the Lebanese Cabinet decided to sever relations with Iran and Libya. Lebanese Foreign Minister Eli Salem said the decision “was taken after Iran and Libya admitted that they have forces in the Bekaa.” 

A report in As-Safir quoted a diplomatic source as saying: “Relations with Iran have worsened due to the illegal interventions, practices and activities it carried out on the Lebanese scene, despite many warnings.” 

The attacks on Oct. 23 were the strongest indication up until then of the shifting balance of regional and international power in Lebanon, and the emergence of a growing Iranian role in the civil war. 

Researcher Walid Noueihed told me that prior to 1982, Beirut had welcomed all forms of opposition, including the educated elite, referred to as the “velvet opposition,” and the armed opposition, the members of which were trained in Palestinian camps or training centers in the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. 

He said the Iranian opposition to the Shah was present among these groups, and described Beirut as an oasis for opposition movements until 1982. However, this dynamic changed when Israel invaded Lebanon and besieged Beirut, resulting in the departure of the PLO under an international agreement that in exchange required Israel to refrain from entering Beirut. 

While the Palestinian factions departed from Lebanon, however, the Lebanese fighters associated with the PLO, most of them Shiites who formed the bases of Lebanese leftist parties, did not. 

The attacks on the US and French military bases led to the withdrawal of international forces from Lebanon, Noueihed said, leaving Beirut unprotected once again. Resistance operations grew, influenced by ideologies distinct from those of the traditional left, as groups such as Islamic Amal openly displayed slogans advocating confrontation with Israel. 

In 1985, Hezbollah was officially established as “a jihadi organization leading a revolution for an Islamic republic.” It attracted support from Lebanese and Palestinian leftist parties, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

Noueihed said the emergence of Hezbollah coincided with a decline of existing symbols of national resistance, which seemed to signal an intention to exclude all other forces in the country from the resistance movement, leaving Hezbollah as the dominant party. 

The Iranian influence in Lebanon became evident during violent clashes between Hezbollah and Amal, which resulted in dozens of casualties and concluded with Hezbollah consolidating its control amid the presence of Syrian military forces. 

Beirut eventually became a city abandoned by the educated elite, as hundreds of writers, intellectuals, researchers and media professionals fled to Europe, fearing for their safety, Noueihed added. 

• Najia Houssari is a writer for Arab News, based in Beirut. She was a war correspondent for Lebanese newspaper As-Safir at the time the US Marine barracks were bombed.