Oct 2, 1981: NYT Front Page: "Bomb at PLO Office Kills 50"
Car bomb in crowded Beirut street. Mysterious terrorist group, the FLLF, claims responsibility. Over 2 weeks FLLF bombs killed 100s of civilians in one of deadliest False Flag #terrorist campaigns ever 1/
THREAD

As John Kifner wrote, the blast was "the sixth and worst of its kind in two weeks" and it "tore the facade from five buildings and squashed cars in the Fakhani neighborhood of Moslem West Beirut." 2/ Link to NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/02/world/bomb-at-plo-office-kills-at-least-50.html

As Kifner explained, following the explosion a mysterious group, the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF) called Lebanese newspapers to claim responsibility, as they had after the previous car bombings 3/

Lebanese PM blamed Israel: ''Now that ISR has been prevented fm persisting in its acts of destruction &killing in Lebanon thru its air force or other attacks, it's looking for other tactics, the cowardly ones to which it's currently resorting either directly or through agents" 4/

Similarly, PLO & a Lebanese leftist leader accused ISR (& its allies in Lebanon) for the bombing. The Washington Post also ran article on the bombing, noting that bombings claimed by FLLF "have killed a total of 85 people and wounded more than 450 in Lebanon since Sept. 17" 5/

On same day @UPI ran 3 articles on the bombing. In the first one, UPI explained that the PLO was blaming "Israeli agents" for car bomb that killed 83 people & wounded 225 "in the most devastating attack of a 'secret war' inside Lebanon" & noted that FLLF claimed responsibility 6/

Another article described how "frantic rescue workers dug for 13 hours through tons of debris & broke through a reinforced concrete roof of a collapsed building" before freeing 35 teenage girls who had been trapped in a factory destroyed by the blast 7/

The bombing, UPI explained, had taken place "on a busy street in Moslem west Beirut packed with fruit and vegetable venders and housewives doing their morning shopping." The death toll had now increased to 92, w/ 222 injured 8/

UPI reported that the PLO accused Israeli agents of being behind the attacks, and that the FLLF, a "a shadowy rightist group behind seven other recent bombings" had claimed responsibility. 9/ Here is a link to that second article: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/10/02/Girls-emerge-unhurt-from-rubble/6050370843200/

In that second article, UPI also reported that the blast "was followed within hours by a second explosion in the Palestinian stronghold of Nabatiyeh which killed one person." And indeed, the first bombing had been part of a much larger attack planned for that day : 10/

Indeed: "Six other cars loaded with hundreds of pounds of explosives were found and defused in Beirut and Sidon in what was intended as a devastating blitz against Palestinians and leftist Lebanese militiamen by rightist terrorists" 11/

On Oct 2, 1981 UPI published a 3rd article mentioning these attacks. As Fred Schiff wrote: "A 165-pound bomb ripped through an empty schoolhouse in south Lebanon today, a day after a massive explosion killed 83 people & wounded 225 others in predominantly Moslem west Beirut" 12/

Thankfully, there were no casualties as the bomb "exploded before teachers and students arrived at the school." Schiff then describes in detail the bombings of the previous day 13/ Link to article: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/10/02/A-165-pound-bomb-ripped-through-an-empty-schoolhouse-in/7481370843200/

Schiff adds that "PLO central committee member Shafik Al Hout charged at the UN that Israeli agents had planted the car-bomb in West Beirut and he considered it 'a serious violation of the cease-fire agreement' with Israel in July. 'It seems now it is sort of a secret war.'" 14/

The car bombing of the previous day, Schiff wrote, "was the latest of a wave of terror bombings by the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon that have claimed 308 lives in two weeks." Let's repeat: "308 lives in two weeks." Nearly all of them, civilians. 15/