![]() ![]() ![]() It was heard from a long distance away.Īs I lay on the floor on my back, the brick wall behind my desk blew out. ![]() Others said that it was the loudest explosion they ever heard. I was very lucky, because I had my arm and the T-shirt in front of my face, which protected me from the flying glass. Dillon, then Ambassador to Lebanon, recounted the attack in his oral history:Īll of a sudden, the window blew in. Rescue workers worked around the clock, unearthing the dead and wounded. The explosion was heard throughout West Beirut and broke windows as far as a mile away. The blast collapsed the entire central facade of the horseshoe-shaped building, leaving the wreckage of balconies and offices in heaped tiers of rubble, and spewing masonry, metal and glass fragments in a wide swath. Former CIA operative Robert Baer's account says that the van broke through an outbuilding, crashed through the lobby door and exploded there. The van, originally sold in Texas, bought used and shipped to the Gulf, gained access to the embassy compound and parked under the portico at the very front of the building, where it exploded. The car bomb was detonated by a suicide bomber driving a van packed with nearly 2,000 pounds (910 kg) of explosives at approximately 1:00 p.m. ![]()
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