WASHINGTON – A US federal court on Friday ordered Iran to pay 2.65 billion dollars to the families of 241 soldiers killed in the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut.
"The court hopes that this extremely sizeable judgment will serve to aid in the healing process for these plaintiffs, and simultaneously sound an alarm to the defendants that their unlawful attacks on our citizens will not be tolerated," judge Royce Lamberth said in his ruling from a federal court in Washington DC.
A previous court ruling in 2003 held that Iran provided financial and logistical help for the lethal 1983 attack carried out by the militant group Hezbollah.
"It is clear from testimony presented to this court … that intense suffering experienced on that day has had a tragically lasting effect on the plaintiffs who have brought this action," Lamberth wrote.
US troops were deployed in Lebanon in 1983 as part of a UN-sponsored multinational peacekeeping force in hopes of containing the country’s civil war.
The Iranian regime has dismissed the 2003 ruling holding it liable for the bombing.