Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, alias al-Hajj Radwan, was a Lebanese militant leader who was the founding member of Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization and number two in Hezbollah's leadership. Information about Mughniyeh is limited, but he is believed to have been Hezbollah's chief of staff and understood to have overseen Hezbollah's military, intelligence, and security apparatuses. He was one of the main founders of Hezbollah in the 1980s. He has been described as "a brilliant military tactician and very elusive". He was often referred to as an ‘untraceable ghost’.
Imad Mughniyeh
1983 Beirut barracks bombings
On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs were detonated at buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF), a military peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians, and two attackers.
A smoke cloud rises from the rubble of the bombed barracks at Beirut International Airport (BIA).
The USMC barracks in Beirut
The building in 1982
Marine Gen. P.X. Kelley (left) and Col. Tim Geraghty (right) take Vice President George H. W. Bush on a tour of the Beirut barracks bombing, two days after the explosion.