Elias Bejjani/Text and Video: The 42nd Anniversary of Hezbollah’s Crime – The 1983 Bombing of the U.S. and French Military Headquarters in Beirut Elias Bejjani/October 23, 2025
On this day, we remember with deep national pain and heartfelt prayers the 42nd anniversary of a horrific terrorist crime that targeted our American and French friends who came to Lebanon to help its people resist the combined terrorism of the Syrian, Iranian, and Palestinian forces — supported by the global left and both branches of political Islam, Sunni and Shiite.
On October 23, 1983, the jihadist and criminal regime of the Iranian mullahs in Tehran, through its terrorist proxy blasphemously named Hezbollah, bombed the U.S. and French military barracks in Beirut. The attack resulted in the martyrdom of 241 American Marines, 56 French soldiers, and a large number of innocent Lebanese civilians.
That massacre was neither spontaneous nor isolated. It was the founding declaration of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s terrorism beyond its borders, and the first public announcement of Tehran’s so-called “exporting the revolution” project— a campaign of ideological and military expansion carried out through extremist sectarian militias, whose mission was and remains to destroy peace and stability in the Middle East and impose Iranian hegemony over the Arab world.
All conclusive evidence proved that the Iranian regime ordered, planned, financed, trained, and executed that attack through its newly formed military proxy at the time — Hezbollah.
Since that day, nothing in Hezbollah’s essence, behavior, or purpose has changed. It remains today the terrorist and occupying proxy of Iran, both inside Lebanon and across the free world.
The same Hezbollah that murdered American and French soldiers in 1983 is the same entity that now slowly kills the Lebanese people— through state capture, political paralysis, economic collapse, corruption, wars and isolation. After its humiliating defeat in its latest futile war against Israel, Hezbollah shamelessly returned to internal terror tactics: intimidation, assassination, hunger, and propaganda against every free Lebanese who refuses to kneel to the Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) regime in Tehran.
It must be said clearly and unequivocally: “Hezbollah has never been, and will never be, a resistance movement.”
It is not a Lebanese entity by any means, nor does it represent the honorable Shiite community. It has kidnapped and enslaved this community, sending its youth to die in Iran’s expansionist and jihadist wars. It imposes its so-called political and parliamentary representation through murder, fear, and terrorism, silencing dissenters from within before silencing others.
Hezbollah is an Iranian, terrorist, criminal, and jihadist mercenary gang— it has absolutely nothing to do with defending Lebanon or liberating its land. It was founded solely to serve the interests of the Iranian Mullahs regime and execute its security and military orders. True resistance defends its people and nation — it does not occupy, rob, or destroy them, nor does it act as a foreign army operating under foreign command.
Over four decades, reality has proven that Hezbollah has not liberated a single inch of Lebanese territory. On the contrary, it has occupied Lebanon, dragged it into senseless wars, devastated its economy, opened its borders to smuggling and chaos, and stripped its citizens of sovereignty and dignity.
Therefore, Hezbollah’s continued domination and armament mean that the 1983 crime is still ongoing — in new forms, every single day. Just as it once targeted international peacekeeping forces, today it targets the Lebanese state itself, preventing its recovery and holding its future hostage to Tehran’s decisions.
The international community must act now — not with words, but with deeds — to help Lebanon reclaim its sovereignty and dismantle this Iranian occupation structure. This requires:
*Full implementation of all international resolutions, especially UNSC Resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias; Resolution 1701, which mandates that weapons be held exclusively by the Lebanese state; and Resolution 1680, alongside the Lebanese Constitution and the Armistice Agreement with Israel.
*Enforcement of the recent ceasefire agreement that Hezbollah signed following its defeat and surrender to Israel, ensuring that Lebanon’s southern border is no longer a hostage to Hezbollah’s weapons or terror.
*Strengthening the Lebanese Army and legitimate state institutions so that they alone hold authority and control over all Lebanese territory.
*Placing Lebanon under UN Chapter VII international protection if current leaders and rulers remain hesitant, complicit, or incapable of confronting Hezbollah and dismantling its military, security, and propaganda networks.
*Imposing severe international sanctions on Hezbollah and all those who fund or politically cover it, and prosecuting its leaders as war criminals and terrorists before Lebanese and international courts.
If the free world truly seeks peace in the Middle East, it must help Lebanon dismantle the Iranian occupation apparatus embodied by Hezbollah and allow the Lebanese people to rebuild their free, sovereign, and independent nation.
On this solemn anniversary, we offer prayers for the souls of the American and French soldiers, and for the innocent Lebanese who perished in that terrorist attack. We also pray for Lebanon’s liberation from the Iranian occupation and its criminal militias — so that our nation, Lebanon, may once again rise as a free, sovereign, and dignified homeland, worthy of peace and justice.
