Yeah flunky...my comments had no basis.....
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl.../etc/cron.html
Nov. 4, 1979 Hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran
Fifty-two American citizens were taken hostage when militant students of radical Islam stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.[1] Shortly thereafter, U.S. President Jimmy Carter ordered a complete embargo of Iranian oil; stronger economic embargoes followed. On April 8, 1980, Carter severed diplomatic relations with
Iran after negotiations for the hostages' release failed.
Later that month, Carter authorized a top-secret mission, named Operation Eagle Claw, to free the hostages. Helicopters were to carry Delta Force commandos from a carrier in the Persian Gulf to a point outside Tehran, where they were to spend the night and begin the rescue the next morning. The complicated mission, which involved refueling the helicopters at a spot in the Iranian desert labeled "Desert One," was aborted April 25 after three of the eight helicopters suffered mechanical failure. Eight U.S. servicemen were killed when one of the helicopters collided with a refueling plane.
The hostages were finally released just hours after Ronald Reagan's presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981. They had spent 444 days in captivity.
April 18, 1983 Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut
A suicide bomber in a pickup truck loaded with explosives rammed into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Sixty-three people were killed, including 17 Americans, eight of whom were employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, including chief Middle East analyst Robert C. Ames and station chief Kenneth Haas.
Reagan administration officials said that the attack was carried out by
Hezbollah operatives, a Lebanese militant Islamic group whose anti-U.S. sentiments were sparked in part by the revolution in
Iran. The Hezbollah operatives who carried out the attack on the embassy reportedly were receiving financial and logistical support from both Iran and Syria. [For more on how and why
Iran and Syria were helping to direct attacks on the U.S., see FRONTLINE's interviews with Robert Oakley and Robert C. McFarlane.]
The U.S. government took no military action in response to the embassy bombing, although, according to retired Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, a covert military team entered Beirut in order to gather intelligence in preparation for retaliatory strikes.
Oct. 23, 1983 Bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut
A suicide bomber detonated a truck full of explosives at a U.S. Marine barracks located at Beirut International Airport; 241 U.S. Marines were killed and more than 100 others wounded. They were part of a contingent of 1,800 Marines that had been sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational force to help separate the warring Lebanese factions. (Twice during the early 1980s the U.S. had deployed troops to Lebanon to deal with the fall-out from the 1982 Israeli invasion. In the first deployment, Marines helped oversee the peaceful withdrawal of the PLO from Beirut. In mid-September 1982 -- after the U.S. troops had left -- Israel's Lebanese allies massacred an estimated 800 unarmed Palestinian civilians remaining in refugee camps. Following this, 1,800 Marines had been ordered back into Lebanon.)
In his September 2001 FRONTLINE interview, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said the U.S. still lacks "actual knowledge of who did the bombing" of the Marine barracks. But it suspected Hezbollah, believed to be supported in part by
Iranand Syria. Hezbollah denied its involvement.
The president assembled his national security team to devise a plan of military action. The planned target was the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would harm U.S. relations with other Arab nations. Instead, President Reagan ordered the battleship USS New Jersey, stationed off the coast of Lebanon, to the hills near Beirut. The move was seen as largely ineffective.
Dec. 12, 1983 Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait
The American embassy in Kuwait was bombed in a series of attacks whose targets also included the French embassy, the control tower at the airport, the country's main oil refinery, and a residential area for employees of the American corporation Raytheon. Six people were killed, including a suicide truck bomber, and more than 80 others were injured. The suspects were thought to be members of Al Dawa, or "The Call," an
Iranian-backed group and one of the principal Shiite groups operating against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The U.S. military took no action in retaliation. In Kuwait, 17 people were arrested and convicted for participating in the attacks. One of those convicted was Mustafa Youssef Badreddin, a cousin and brother-in-law of one of Hezbollah's senior officers, Imad Mughniyah. After a six-week trial in Kuwait, Badreddin was sentenced to death for his role in the bombings.
Over the following years, the arrest and imprisonment of the "Kuwait 17" (also known as the "Al Dawa 17"), became one of the most consistent demands of the kidnappers of Western hostages in Lebanon and plane hijackers.
Ironically, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Iraqis unwittingly released the imprisoned Badreddin and the remaining members of the Kuwait 17. Press reports vary about Badreddin's current whereabouts.
March 16, 1984 CIA Station Chief William Buckley kidnapped
Buckley was the fourth person to be kidnapped by militant Islamic extremists in Lebanon. The first American hostage, American University of Beirut President David Dodge, had been kidnapped in July 1982. Eventually, 30 Westerners would be kidnapped during the 10-year-long Lebanese hostage-taking crisis (1982-1992).
Americans who were kidnapped included journalist Terry Anderson, American University of Beirut librarian Peter Kilburn, and Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian minister. While some of the prisoners lived through captivity -- Anderson spent the longest time as a hostage, 2,454 days -- some, including Buckley, died in captivity or were killed by their kidnappers.
U.S. officials believed that the
Iranian-backed Hezbollah was behind most of the kidnappings and the Reagan administration devised a covert plan.
Iran was desperately running out of military supplies in its war with Iraq, but Congress had banned the sale of American arms to countries like Iran that sponsored terrorism. Reagan was advised that a bargain could be struck -- secret arms sales to Iran, hostages back to the U.S. The plan, when it was revealed to the public, was decried as a failure and anathema to the U.S. policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists.
In August 1985, the first consignment of arms to
Iran was sent -- 100 anti-tank missiles provided by Israel; another 408 were sent the following month. As a result of the deal, American hostage Benjamin Weir was released from captivity; he had been imprisoned for 495 days. Only two other hostages were released as a result of the arms-for-hostages deal: in July 1986, Martin Jenco, a Catholic priest, was released; and the administrator of the American University of Beirut's medical school, David Jacobson, was released in November 1986.
Since the funds from the arms sales to
Iran were secretly, and illegally, funneled to the U.S.-backed Contras fighting to overthrow the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, the infamous episode became known as the "Iran-Contra affair." (See the "Final Report of the Independent Counsel for
Iran/Contra Matters.)
Dec. 3, 1984 Hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 221
Kuwait Airways Flight 221, on its way from Kuwait to Pakistan, was hijacked and diverted to
Tehran. The hijackers demanded the release of the Kuwait 17. When the demand wasn't met, the hijackers killed two American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development. On the sixth day of the drama,
Iranian security forces stormed the plane and released the remaining hostages.
Iran arrested the hijackers, saying they would be brought to trail. But the trial never took place, and the hijackers were allowed to leave the country. There was no U.S. military response. The State Department announced a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of those involved in the hijacking. Later press reports linked Hezbollah's Imad Mughniyah to the hijackings.
June 14, 1985 Hijacking of TWA Flight 847
TWA Flight 847 was hijacked en route from Athens to Rome and forced to land in Beirut, Lebanon, where the hijackers held the plane for 17 days. They demanded the release of the Kuwait 17 as well as the release of 700 fellow Shiite Muslim prisoners held in Israeli prisons and in prisons in southern Lebanon run by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army. When these demands weren't met, hostage Robert Dean Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was shot and his body dumped on the airport tarmac. U.S. sources implicated Hezbollah.
In what was widely perceived as an implicit, never explicit, quid pro quo, the hostages started being released by the hijackers, followed some days after by Israel starting to free some of its hundreds of Shiite prisoners. At the time, U.S. officials denied there was a deal and said Israel had already committed to releasing the prisoners.
Imad Mughniyah, a senior officer with Hezbollah, was secretly indicted for the TWA hijacking in 1987, along with three others. One of those indicted, Mohammed Ali Hamadei, was arrested in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1989 he was convicted in a German court and sentenced to life in prison. [Editor's Note: Imad Mugniyah remained at large and on the FBI's Most Wanted List for 19 years, until he was killed in a car bombing in Damascus, Syria on Feb. 12, 2008.]
December 21, 1988 Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York exploded over the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 people on board were killed, along with 11 on the ground. According to the State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1991," released in April 1992, the bombing of Pan Am 103 "was an action authorized by the Libyan Government." Though there were reports that Syria and
Iran also played significant roles in the attack,
