Debate one, do you bring this up, or leave it off?, maybe hint at it anonymously somewhere?, but as the clock of time keeps ticking and certain things don't seem to be getting any better, might as well, lightly, say something.
Foremost this post is being written toward the aim of peace.
There is a firm belief that manipulation of youth by obscuring truth in history, to carry out the greedy aims of mizers, or misers, does not always have to be a reality that has to exist in our world.
This post is not going to knock anyone's socks off with factual data, nor will it be a concoction of stringing together events that form up a view that puts one as radical wild cat.
What will attempt to be done here, is 're-feed' the same news stories that were already fed before; in the past, it was tough to provide a set of the same readers to see it all, all in one place.
One might see where even beginning to talk about the topics that are on the lay here, can be dangerous; as a rule, sometimes talking about the truth about anything can be dangerous.
Dangerous for me; and dangerous for readers that might get all excited that they now know more than before, and do not know how to act responsibly with a more thorough knowledge base. Thereat and therefore, once again, content that goes on this page will be lightly refeeding.
A lot of folks up on Middle East news are already on to the thread, and really, filling in the blanks is not even necessary. Just look at the blog post title.
What did newspaper headlines say over the weekend (September 20-22, 2024)?, paraphrased, 'Hezbollah leader sought for '83 attack has been killed in raid'?
A statement like that brings up a bunch of can's worms.
One, for those know Middle East early 80s history, the area or region where Hezbollah was popularly known to be present in, especially Lebanon, was riddled by unrest. Attacks of sorts occurred intermittently; it seemed every several days, sometimes several attacks in a day. So, which attack was being referring to last weekend?
How would today's youth, who might know where the Middle East is, but might not have the geography map etched in their heads, at least not yet, automatically know what 83 event was the referent, especially when US soldiers born in late 83 or after, if they served soon after high school, are now at service retirement age? '83 is pushing a while back; the talk that rings bells expected of the mainstream one in the same with certain circles, may have limitations now.
Without going past the glossover, thoughts may race to one of the salient attacks that occurred, in 1983.
Bringing us to News story 1
Mid October 1983, what hit the news strong was an attack on barracks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings
From the Office of the Historian, News story 2
The Reagan Administration and Lebanon, 1981–1984
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1981-1988/lebanon
Speaking of Reagan era in the 1980s, let us look at 1986; News story 3
UPI Archives | April 15, 1986
Reagan: Airstrike against Libya victory against terrorism
That article, as there were others, pointed out 2 dimensions of the event:
"As Reagan pledged he will not relent in his campaign to ''eradicate the scourge of terror in the modern world,'' reports from the Libyan capital of Tripoli said that Moammar Khadafy's 15-month-old adopted daughter was killed in the bombing and two of the Libyan leaders's [leader's] sons were seriously hurt."
Smithsonian Magazine, from 2011, Ronald Reagan and Moammar Qadhafi
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ronald-reagan-and-moammar-qadhafi-422494/
From a History.com article,
1986
U.S. bombs terrorist and military targets in Libya
"During the 1970s and ’80s, Qaddafi’s government financed a wide variety of Muslim and anti-imperial groups worldwide, from Palestinian guerrillas and Philippine Muslim rebels to the Irish Republican Army and the Black Panthers. In response, the U.S. imposed sanctions against Libya, and relations between the two nations steadily deteriorated. In 1981, Libya fired at a U.S. aircraft that passed into the Gulf of Sidra, which Qaddafi had claimed in 1973 as Libyan territorial waters. That year, the U.S. uncovered evidence of Libyan-sponsored terrorist plots against the United States, including planned assassination attempts against U.S. officials and the bombing of a U.S. embassy-sponsored dance in Khartoum, Sudan."
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-bombs-libya
News story 4; prior to the 1986 operation, there was,
West Berlin discotheque bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Berlin_discotheque_bombing
Excerpt from entry says,
"On 5 April 1986, three people were killed and 229 injured when La Belle discothèque was bombed in the Friedenau locality (then part of Schöneberg, and since 2001 part of the merged district of Tempelhof-Schöneberg) of West Berlin [Germany]. The entertainment venue was commonly frequented by United States soldiers;[2][3] two of the dead and 79 of the injured were Americans.[1]
Libya was accused by the US government of sponsoring the bombing, before US president Ronald Reagan ordered retaliatory strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya ten days later."
A reference to the 1986 bombing of referent points in Libya, it appears, was made on 9-11, when two to several men were seen in white or whitish robes making some kind of television appearance. Whether they were claiming responsibility for 9-11, or making a comment as to why they assert the Towers may have been attacked, or solely stating the historical fact of events upon another magnanimous event, not gone into here, and did not seem to be stated by them exactly what their reason was for their statement.
News story 5, 9-11, in 2001.
September 11 attacks
https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks
Note that Benghazi was mentioned in the operation in 1986.
Benghazi --
Moving to News story 6
2012 Benghazi attack
As of 9/2024, Wikipedia says about the event which also basically begun on 9/11 but in 2012,
"The 2012 Benghazi attack was a coordinated attack against two United States government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, by members of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia. On September 11, 2012, at 9:40 p.m. local time, members of Ansar al-Sharia attacked the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi resulting in the deaths of both United States Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith.[1][2] At around 4:00 a.m. on September 12, the group launched a mortar attack against a CIA annex approximately one mile (1.6 km) away, killing two CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty[2][3][4] and wounding ten others. Initial analysis by the CIA, repeated by top government officials, indicated that the attack spontaneously arose from a protest.[5] Subsequent investigations showed that the attack was premeditated—although rioters and looters not originally part of the group may have joined in after the attacks began.[6][7][8][9]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack
1985
News story, TWA Flight 847 Hijacking
Wikipedia says 9/2024,
"TWA Flight 847 was a regularly scheduled Trans World Airlines flight from Cairo to San Diego with en route stops in Athens, Rome, Boston, and Los Angeles.[1] On the morning of June 14, 1985, Flight 847 was hijacked soon after take off from Athens.[2][3] The hijackers demanded the release of 700 Shia Muslims from Israeli custody and took the plane repeatedly to Beirut and Algiers.[1] Later Western analysis considered them members of the Hezbollah group, an allegation Hezbollah rejects."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_847
1988
News story, Flight 422 Hijacking
Hijacked Plane in Cyprus After 7 Hours of Air Terror : Gun Held at Pleading Pilot’s Head
L.A. Times Archives
April 8, 1988
"A hijacked Kuwaiti jumbo jet carrying 55 people landed in Larnaca, Cyprus, today, seven terror-filled hours after taking off from Mashhad airport in Iran."
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-04-08-mn-1253-story.html
Perhaps some remember this, perhaps to those in younger generations, this might be a refresher, or even new news of old news.
Wikipedia says 9/2024,
"Kuwait Airways Flight 422 was a Boeing 747 jumbo jet hijacked en route from Bangkok, Thailand, to Kuwait City, Kuwait on 5 April 1988, leading to a hostage crisis that lasted 16 days and encompassed three continents. The hijacking was carried out by several Lebanese guerillas who demanded the release of 17 Shi'ite Muslim prisoners being held by Kuwait for their role in the 1983 Kuwait bombings."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait_Airways_Flight_422
There are at least several other main points/events that can go in here, this is a work in progress.
A, level of getting a grasp on chronology and developments can possibly be gained from the list above; but, to more truly get a hold of the events, which were not so much a zigzag of events that suddenly cropped up appearing spotty in location pattern all over the Middle East, it may have been more logical when some of the other pieces in the timeline or filled in. It may have been more difficult to form a succinct story with smooth transitioning, after citing the Israeli airstrikes of September 2024, and the Barracks attack in Beirut in 1983; whereat a brief outline that goes back before 1983 might help in figuring out how the barracks got there in the first place, and even before then, how conditions arose that led to conditions that precipitated the barracks.
Here are some of those events; there may be other timelines with more detail within the articles cited:
Black Saturday - December 1975
Karantina Massacre - mid January 1976
Damour Massacre - late January 1976
Camp David Accords - September 1978
"September 1979, he [Argov] was appointed ambassador [of Israel] to the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Menachem Begin" Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Argov [9/2024]
At the start of the 1980s, were hostilities in the region of Palestine, Israel, Lebanon; plus ongoing Lebanon Civil War; groups in the region had splintering occur.
Israeli bombing of spots in Lebanon, targets were said to have been PLO in different locations in Lebanon. It was reported that numerous persons were hurt or deceased in the attacks.
Mid July 1981, P. Habib in town, basically Lebanon, ceasefire between PLO and Israel.
There was an assassination attempt on Argov in early June 1982; he reportedly remained hospitalized for months.
On or about June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. Operation Peace for Galilee. Also known as the Lebanon War, which on the prima facie words, sounds like it was a war within and by forces solely Lebanon.
Recalling, the region of Lebanon had heated tension about the topic summarily described as Muslim--Shia--Sunni--Druze--Jewish--Christian-especially-Maronite, who should be running political offices political issues, during the era of the very early to at least the middle 1980s.
There were also a number of groups and political parties that interfaced each other in the region mainly bounded by and through Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, for instance PLO.
1982 was about the end of then Lebanese President Sarkis in seat.
To succeed him would be Gemayel, who was assassinated after being voted in, and about a few weeks before he would technically be holding the seat.
About late August 1982, shortly before the abovesaid tragedy, the MNF (which would later be the site of the Beirut barracks bombing of 1983), got introduced to the Beirut area. MNF was Multinational Force in Lebanon.
It may have seemed that conflicts of interest were relatively high in abundance in terms of what political part had allied with what party and group during the early 1980s. It may have been hard to tell in the days before instant news through Internet, who was still sided with who, and for how long, when a relationship stopped and, or started. There may have been overlapping and hence conflicting perceptions of relationships when for instance, a relationship stopped, the mark taking place on a certain day in a Lebanese village, but the word did no spread to locations on the other side of the globe until months sometimes years later, such as when newspaper writers were still in process of collecting data and writing their reports; the information may have changed in the middle of their process of writing the story, leaving readers sometimes reading or hearing several conflicting stories.
Sabra and Shatila
Referring to the 'massacre' of Sabra and Shatila
Since 1982, writings about it and the developments that the authors present as what led up to it, have been made, some of which, for reasons that may involve natural human conceptions of logic, seem to be hard to understand; still now in 2024.
Here is the link to Wikipedia's article on the event as of 9/2024:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre
It says,
"...Sabra and Shatila massacre was the 16–18 September 1982 killing of between 1,300 and 3,500 civilians..."
Books on the subject may not necessarily portray the event as a sudden massacre, rather a longer set of developments that culminated in a massacre.
US Embassy bombing in Beirut April of 1983.
October 1983, MNF Beirut barracks bombing; and go back to the beginning of this webpage for the timeline.
For now, with events in Lebanon broiling, will close out with:
MERIP provides a background article on Lebanon crisis in the era that includes what this post focuses on, which is the 80s:
Primer: Lebanon’s 15-Year War, 1975-1990
The title, ...1975-1990, says a number of things. Developments in Lebanon is not something new and out of the blue, nor limited to once upon a time there a was a major event lasting a couple of days, then every 5 years or so a major event made headlines in the newspapers globally.
Circling back to what is going on today, news:
TIMELINE - Lebanon suffers 3 deadly attacks in 4 days
September 20, 2024
"(1) Cellular device blasts – 17 September
...thousands of pager communication devices, mostly used by Hezbollah for wireless communication, simultaneously exploded across Lebanon.
Twelve people were killed and 2,323 others injured, ...
(2) Icom walkie-talkie blasts – 18 September
A day later, on Wednesday, thousands of Icom walkie-talkie units used by the group also simultaneously exploded across Lebanon.
The blasts killed more 25 and injured 608 others, according to the Ministry of Health.
(3) Israeli air strike on southern Beirut – 20 September
An Israeli air strike on Friday killed at least 12 people in Beirut’s Southern Suburb region and injured 66 others, including eight in critical condition, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.
The Israeli army, for its part, claimed to have targeted and killed Ibrahim Aqil, a top Hezbollah military Commander.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240920-timeline-lebanon-suffers-3-deadly-attacks-in-4-days/
Who was Aqil?
Reuters says
Killed Hezbollah commander Aqil was wanted for deadly 1983 US embassy, Marine blasts
By Reuters
September 20, 2024
Given that developments in Lebanon in the past year late 2023 through mid 2024, may have perceptions that they are at least in part in ramifications of the October 7th music festival attack, note news story:
How a night of dancing and revelry in Israel turned into a massacre
Published October 8, 2023
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/08/israel-festival-attack-gaza-militants/
The following is a quick list of other points that might get expounded on later:
{Beqaa Valley, has a number of spellings, Bekaa, Beca, etc.}
- Drug running through the Beqaa Valley.
"In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Bekaa Valley, particularly the parts controlled by Syria, became a hub for the cultivation of narcotics."
- Drug running in other countries in the world, such as the US, with those drugs.
- Siege at the Kaaba in Mecca.
- Iran-Iraq War
- Intifadah
- Tension in Afghanistan, Russia pulls out Afghanistan around 1989
- The Iraq invasion of Kuwait.
- Strikes, including coming from the US, against Iraq.
- Taif Agreement. Late 1989. "The agreement also provided for the disarmament of all national and non national militias. Hezbollah was allowed to stay armed in its capacity as a "resistance force" rather than a militia, fighting Israel in the south, a privilege obtained – according to the Swedish academic Magnus Ranstorp – in part by using its leverage as holder of a number of Western hostages.[9]" Source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taif_Agreement 9/2024
- More [i.e. about post 2020] drug running in Beqaa Valley, --> Captagon
Captagon, the New Cocaine of the Middle East?
Mar 24, 2023
"Between January and August 2022, Iraqi counter-drug forces seized more than 14 million Captagon pills. In December, Jordanian authorities intercepted another 6 million pills at the Iraqi border."
https://www.heritage.org/middle-east/commentary/captagon-the-new-cocaine-the-middle-east