On October 23, 1983, a terrorist group killed 241 U.S. military personnel, including 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and three soldiers in a terrorist bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Minutes later, a second suicide bomber killed 58 French paratroopers. Six innocent Lebanese civilians also lost their lives. The attack on the Beirut barracks remains to this day the single deadliest day for the U.S. Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima.
On February 7, 1984, President Reagan ordered the Marines to begin withdrawing from Lebanon largely because of waning congressional support for the mission after the attacks on the barracks. Following the lead of the U.S., the rest of the multinational force, the British, French and Italians, was withdrawn by the end of February 1984.