“On April 18, 1983, in what would become a model for similar suicide attacks, a delivery van pulled up outside the U.S. embassy in Beirut [Lebanon]. The van had been stolen from the embassy the year before, so it was admitted to the protected compound and parked under the portico at the front of the seven-story building. Inside was a suicide bomber bearing four hundred pounds of explosives. When the device detonated, the sides of the embassy pancaked down. Sixty-three people died, including seventeen Americans–eight of them CIA staff. Though a group calling itself ‘Islamic Jihad’ took responsibility, the attack was the work of Hezbollah.”
– Peter Lance, Triple Cross, Page 13