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Iran's Current Defense Minister Helped Plan 1983 Attacks on U.S. Forces

[Proceedings-U.S. Naval Institute] Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, U.S. Marine Corps (ret.) - The 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut were the first time Islamic suicide bombers had attacked significant American targets. Our timidity to respond created an aura of impunity that the Islamic extremists sensed and pursued all the way to the 9/11 attacks, which finally awakened America. The U.S. intelligence community compiled an all-sources damage assessment after the Marine barracks bombing. They studied signals, overhead, and human intelligence and concluded the evidence was overpowering that Iran had been behind it. In August 2005, Mustafa Mohammad-Najjar was named the new defense minister of Iran. Najjar's previous assignment as senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earned him a reputation of ruthlessness and ideological loyalty. In 1983, he commanded the 1,500-man expeditionary force sent to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. This Iranian unit provided security, planning, training, and operational support for the truck bombings on 23 October 1983. Col. Geraghty commanded the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit in Beirut, Lebanon, at the time of the bombings. He served over 25 years in the Marine Corps and seven years in the Special Operations Group of the Central Intelligence Agency.
2008-10-10 01:00:00
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