An explosion at the La Belle discotheque shattered the early morning hours of April 5, 1986, as a bomb hidden beneath the DJ booth ripped through the building at 1:45 AM. Among the deceased were Nermin Hannay, a Turkish woman, and Sgt Kenneth T. Ford CSC 4/502. Critically injured, Sgt James E. Groins CSC 4/502 died of his injuries two months later. At least 230 individuals, including over fifty American service members, suffered injuries.
I think, and after thirty-eight years, I may be mistaken, my unit had been training in Bonnland, West Germany, when the La Belle bombing happened. I found out about the bombing when we returned to Berlin a few days later. The La Belle bombing injured a few members of my unit, 6/502nd.
The bombing left us with an unsettling question—who was responsible? A Berlin police detective I knew told me that Libya was behind the bombing. Just a few days later, on April 14, 1986, Operation El Dorado Canyon, targeted Muammar Gaddafi’s Bab al-Azizia compound.
Even though some articles claim Germany did not have any evidence of who handled the bombing, my Berlin police detective led me to believe otherwise. Just recently, I learned of a few pieces of information I didn’t previously know. Signal Intelligence (Stejskal, 2020) captured between “Libya and the Libyan People’s Bureau—it’s embassy—in East Berlin indicated prior knowledge and subsequent approval of the attack by Col. Moammar Gadhafis government.” (U.S. Delays Underlined as Disco Bombing Suspect Is Freed in Lebanon, 1994).
After the reunification of Germany, the Stasi Records implicated Musbah Eter, leading to his indictment for aiding and abetting attempted murder in the La Belle bombing. The court also indicted and convicted two others—Palestinian Yasser Mohammed Chreidi and Lebanese-born German Ali Chanaa.
Libya eventually compensated Germans, wounded by the bombing, and the family of the Turkish woman who was killed. Americans were not part of the compensation settlement.
References:
Malinarich, N. (2001, November 13). Europe | flashback: The Berlin Disco bombing. BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1653848.stm
Stejskal, J. (2020). Special forces berlin: Clandestine cold war operations of the US Army’s elite, 1956-1990. Casemate.
U.S. delays underlined as disco bombing suspect is freed in Lebanon. (1994, August 2). https://www.archives.gov. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/foia/garland/8001832_Box2_Folder20.pdf
Terry Ebaugh 