Pence remembers attack victims after death of Beirut bombing planner

Columbus congressman and former Marines Greg Pence is speaking out after the announcement that a Hezbollah leader was killed in an Israeli missile strike over the weekend.

The Lebanese health ministry says the missile strike leveled an apartment building in a densely populated neighborhood in south Beirut on Friday, killing 37 people including 16 senior commanders of the militant group. Those dead included commander Ibrahim Aqil. Pence says that Aqil was involved in the planning of the 1983 bombing of the Marines barracks in Beirut, an attack that Pence missed by a matter of days when he was serving in the Corps.

241 people died in the Oct. 23rd attack, including 220 Marines.

Pence says that the attack was one of the moist lethal days for the Marines since World War II. He says “their sacrifice was the ultimate tragedy, and every day, I think about those whose lives were cruelly taken from us in the attack. This moment is another step closer to justice. To my fallen comrades and their families, I say Semper Fi.”

Pence’s unit shipped out from Lebanon, just 10 days prior to the bombing.

Aqil is also linked to the bombing of the U.S. embassy earlier in 1983.

TTWN Media Networks contributed to this report