Justice is served. A key Hezbollah leader, who was one of the masterminds of the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing, was obliterated during a strategic Israeli airstrike on Friday.

https://twitter.com/IsraelWarRoom/status/1837140427528622161

Yes, Ibrahim Aqil has finally met justice. It was swift and deadly. I couldn’t be more thrilled. Aqil was a terrorist who planned and executed attacks that killed nearly three hundred Americans. He’s been on the wanted and terror watch lists for decades now. 

Just days after the epic pagers going BOOM exercise, Israeli forces sought out and destroyed Aqil.

He was killed along with other commanders planning a fresh incursion on Israel to “kidnap and murder innocent civilians in a similar manner to the October 7 Massacre,” the IDF said.

“The IDF will continue to remove the threat of Hezbollah’s capabilities and will continue to operate in all arenas to protect Israeli civilians,” the military said in its announcement.

Aquil, who was also known as “Tahsin,” was a “principal leader” in the terrorist groups’ cell responsible for the 1983 Lebanon bombings at a US embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people and a Marine Corps barracks, which killed 241 US personnel.

In 1983, the Marines along with French and British forces were in Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission. And then, on October 23, they were attacked. 

On October 23, 1983, 241 US service personnel – including 220 Marines and 21 other service personnel – are killed by a truck bomb at a Marine compound in Beirut, Lebanon.

Three hundred service members had been living at the four-story building at the airport in Beirut. There were 1,800 Marines stationed in Beirut at the time.

A multi-national force with units from France, Italy and the United Kingdom was also on peacekeeping duty in Lebanon at the same time.

At the same time the Marine barracks was hit, a suicide bomber drove a pickup truck full of explosives and crashed into a building housing French paratroopers. Approximately 58 French soldiers were killed in the attack.

A key mastermind behind these truck bomb attacks on the Marine Barracks and the prior attack on the U.S. Embassy in April, was Ibrahim Aqil. And yes, over the years, clear evidence has pointed to Iran funding Hezbollah’s terror attacks then and now.

Keep in mind, since the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah has launched rockets at Israel on a near continual basis, and is responsible for killing twelve children on a soccer field. 

To me, it was obvious that Israel was waiting for just the right time to launch a surgical counterstrike. And boy was it absolutely brilliant. Who’ve thought causing pagers, that Israel evidently built and SOLD to Hezbollah, to blow up would be an easy way to identify the terrorists in Lebanon? 

Amazingly, the United States warned Hezbollah that the beatings will continue unless the attacks from Lebanon are halted. 

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says that the US would urge Israel to halt strikes on Hezbollah if the terror group stopped launching attacks against the Jewish state first.

“Nasrallah could stop the terrorist attacks across Israel, and I guarantee you, if he did that, we would be impressing upon Israel the need to maintain calm on their end,” Miller says, in a somewhat uncharacteristically frank statement for a State Department spokesperson.

“The bottom line is, he hasn’t stopped those terrorist attacks, and so as long as Hezbollah is launching terrorist attacks across the border, of course, Israel is going to launch military action to defend itself as any country would,” he adds.

The terrorists laughed and ignored the warnings. With Aqil and other high profile commanders getting blown up as the result. 

🚨🚨An Israeli official said that the entire senior command of Hezbollah's Radwan force was eliminated in the strike (around 20 commanders) https://t.co/wtUzmRShhD

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) September 20, 2024

Aqil was not only a key mastermind behind the Marine Barracks bombing in 1983, he was currently serving  on the Jihad Council, the highest military body for the terror organization. 

The US State Department designated Aqil as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2019 as a result of his involvement in multiple terrorist plots, including the kidnapping of national officials in the 1980s.

Therefore, the Department of State has placed a reward of up to $7 million on his head.

It wasn’t just Aqil and other top commanders who met karma yesterday. 

With the direction of IDF intelligence, the IAF struck approximately 30 Hezbollah launchers and terrorist infrastructure sites, containing approximately 150 launcher barrels that were ready to fire projectiles toward Israeli territory.

Additionally, the IDF struck Hezbollah… https://t.co/uqezvGXdZh

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 19, 2024

Lebanon plans to retaliate. 

Considering that a significant number of their forces are injured due to exploding pagers and walkie talkies, and at least ten or more top commanders are no longer among the living, I wonder how they’ll be able to retaliate? Import more terrorists from Iran? Iran already funds Hezbollah, so they might as well send bodies. 

It’s highly evident that Israel has had enough and is laying waste to at least one major terror organization. 

It took nearly forty one years, but thanks to Israel, Justice for the fallen and the survivors is served. 

Feature Photo Credit: Marine veteran of 1983 Beirut bombing at wreath laying Oct 23, 2015, Cpl Andrew Kuppers, public domain, via Wikimedia, cropped and modified