The United States has declared Lebanon's consul general in Detroit persona non grata and ordered him to leave the country over social media posts attributed to him that praised the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut.

Lebanon's embassy in Washington told the Beirut daily Annahar on Saturday, 7 November, that the State Department had formally notified it of the decision. Lebanese Foreign Ministry sources told the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that the consul, Ibrahim Charara, had been given 48 hours to leave, and was expected to return to Lebanon on Sunday. Neither the State Department nor Charara had commented publicly by Saturday evening.

The controversy centres on a 2021 social media post in which Charara was reported to have written that the "heroic resistance" had ended the "American military occupation" of Lebanon with a single strike. The conservative US website Washington Free Beacon reported on the post on 2 November. The site also criticised Charara's attendance at an Arab American event in Dearborn, Michigan, in late October that backed Democratic candidates before the 3 November midterm elections.

A source close to Charara told the Lebanese broadcaster LBCI that the post had come from an old social media account that was hacked several years ago. That claim has not been independently verified, and the posts themselves remain attributed rather than confirmed as his own words.

The truck bombings of 23 October 1983 in Beirut killed 241 US service members, 58 French soldiers and six Lebanese civilians. Washington blames Hezbollah, which it designates a terrorist organisation, for the attack. The group has never claimed or denied responsibility.

[Source: theinsightinternational.com](https://theinsightinternational.com/us-expels-lebanons-consul-general-in-detroit-over-posts-praising-1983-marine-barracks-bombing/) | [Source: jbiznews.com](https://jbiznews.com/us-declares-lebanese-diplomat-persona-non-grata-after-post-praising-hezbollahs-1983-bombing/)