A US judge ordered Iran on Wednesday to pay nearly $1.7 billion to the families of US soldiers killed in the 1983 Beirut bombing. The ruling may be appealed, but the order constitutes a legal setback for the Iranian government and could further damage US-Iran relations. 

Background: Reuters reported that judge Loretta Preska in the US District Court in the Southern District of New York ordered Iran’s central bank and the Luxembourg-based Clearstream Banking SA to pay $1.68 billion to the families of the US Marines who died. Clearstream is currently holding the relevant assets in a fund. 

The case relates to the 1983 attack when two suicide bombers used truck bombs to blow up barracks housing US Marines and French soldiers in Lebanon. The soldiers were in the country as part of an international peacekeeping mission amid the Lebanese civil war. A total of 241 US soldiers and 58 French soldiers were killed, in addition to six civilians and the two suicide bombers. 

A group known as Islamic Jihad took credit for the attack. US officials have long accused Iran and its Lebanese militant proxy Hezbollah of being involved in the attack. There is no consensus that Hezbollah existed at the time, though it emerged in Lebanon in the 1980s.