For a brief period it seemed as if anti-Americanism in the Middle East was subsiding. But in 1983, after Reagan sent Marines into Lebanon to help restore order to that war-ravaged country, Muslim radicals responded with a terrifying war tactic. In October, a suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with explosives into a U.S. Marine barracks, killing 241 Marines. President Reagan soon afterwards addressed the nation: "We have to come to grips with the fact that today's terrorists are better armed and financed and they are more sophisticated. They are possessed of a fanatical intensity, that individuals of a democratic society can only barely comprehend."