We’ve all seen video and images of the blast that leveled everything within a mile and a half of the port in Beirut.
Most of us are in agreement that it was ammonium nitrate that caused the the explosion. But many are asking why that much of the chemical was stored there.
An independent journalist from Lebanon may have the answer. Hachem Yassine has a couple of Twitter threads that explain the situation.
Here’s the graphic from the tweet, so you can see it without having to click through.
It was produced by a law firm that represented the crew from the MV Rhosus, the vessel in question. Hachem goes into greater detail in the following thread:
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There are a few things to keep in mind. This is Lebanon. Things happen in third world countries that would never happen here.
Beyond the normal corruption you’ll see in those types of places, Hezbollah is a big part of daily life there. It’s rumored they control the port and at least part of the customs service in Beirut.
My guess is the someone who didn’t want the shipment destroyed or re-exported was someone from Hezbollah. As I noted in yesterday’s The View from Here, Hezbollah has been caught trying to stockpile AN in England and Germany.
And a little mea culpa, I said yesterday the TNT equivalent of the 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate was 2.2k/t. It isn’t. That’s the equivalent yield of ANFO. Straight, un-boosted AN is less explod-y. The TNT equivalent is more like 1.2k/t.