Terror Explosion rocks central Beirut

[digrar]

To satisfy who's curiosity? It only appears to be the fringes that don't believe it was a large AN store that went up.

 

[TheKiwi]

I was leaving a trail of crumbs for you to say Hezbollah via Iran.

Instead I shaved with Occam's razor.

 

[Chazman]

Instead I shaved with Occam's razor.

You did indeed. Anyway, the Director General of Beirut Customs, Badri Daher, had several times strongly urged that the AN should be sold or re-exported IMMEDIATELY, since it was considered hazardous. His pleas went unheard. Unfortunately, Hezbollah controls the port and had no intention of moving it.

 

[muck]

No offence, but you're being a bit irrational about this. Even first world countries are rife with scandals involving insufficient government oversight and ignored warnings. What then is there to say about a country with a corrupt government the hung parliament of which barely manages to get a budget together?

One half of Lebanon's public officials are busy lining their pockets, the other half tries to organise the semblance of a normal state. Ensuring the safe storage of a fertiliser many people don't even know is dangerous just wasn't on their agenda.

There is or was a ship deployed with a United Nations peacekeeping force in the harbor. Do they have at least a rudimentary chem lab and staff on board capable of taking samples for analyses of explosives residue?

As I said, there's a Bangladeshi corvette moored only a few hundred metres away. A vessel like that has no more CBRN-related equipment on board than sprinklers to wash nuclear fallout away. Besides, it's damaged and many sailors were injured.

 

[Chazman]

No offence, but you're being a bit irrational about this. Even first world countries are rife with scandals involving insufficient government oversight and ignored warnings. What then is there to say about a country with a corrupt government the hung parliament of which barely manages to get a budget together?

It's a fact that Hezbollah controls Beirut's seaport and airport. It's a fact that various Lebanese officials were concerned about it being stored at the port the entire time. It's a fact it was still there until it exploded 2 days ago. There is incompetence all over this thing. And it looks like the biggest role was played by Hezbollah.

Bahaa Hariri, son of assassinated Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri came out and said just that today.

Lebanese politician blames Hezbollah and the government for explosion

Bahaa Hariri, 54, said last night that everyone in the city knew Hezbollah controlled Beirut's port and airport and it was inconceivable authorities did not know the deadly ammonium nitrate.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[colin traveller]

16 Detained in Connection with Beirut Explosion

The government of Lebanon has detained 16 people in connection with the deadly blast that rocked Bei...

www.maritime-executive.com

 

[Telmar]

Hezbollah would have never stored missile parts, let alone ammo in the Christian sector.

Missile parts would have come by plane, and the airport is in their sector,

A ship, that would have left Iran, would need to sail past Israel to get to Beirut...If anybody had been watching, that ship would be a scuba divers paradise wreck.

It' s fringe of the fringe...of the fringe theory.

 

[Chazman]

Hezbollah would have never stored missile parts, let alone ammo in the Christian sector.

Missile parts would have come by plane, and the airport is in their sector,

A ship, that would have left Iran, would need to sail past Israel to get to Beirut...If anybody had been watching, that ship would be a scuba divers paradise wreck.

It' s fringe of the fringe...of the fringe theory.

Why is that? Because Hezbollah loves Christians so much? So you're saying that the Hezbollah munitions dump would more logically be located at the airport? Still in the Christian sector, 5 miles from the port. Israel isn't going to sink every ship that goes past it. Those secondary explosions were pretty substantial at the warehouse. Probably just "fireworks".

Anyway, we'll take this up tomorrow boys. Time for bed.

 

[IDF_TANKER]

Hezbollah would have never stored missile parts, let alone ammo in the Christian sector.

Missile parts would have come by plane, and the airport is in their sector,

A ship, that would have left Iran, would need to sail past Israel to get to Beirut...If anybody had been watching, that ship would be a scuba divers paradise wreck.

It' s fringe of the fringe...of the fringe theory.

Paraphrasing Homelander, this is Hezbollah and they can do whatever the F*** they want.

 

[Flagg]

No one who knows anything about DG and IE/HE safe handling and storage.

Speaking of which.....

Hey @digrar , have you ever heard anything about efforts to formulate AN in a way to reduce shelf life and efficacy over time?

My limited hands on experience with it reminded me of a discussion with the fellas running the course(just past the IED peak of last decade) of attempts to mitigate misuse thru reformulation efforts(“use it or lose it”). Don’t know if it was real or good idea fairy stuff.

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d go with 500 tons TNT equivalent playing around with the nuke map: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is that Israeli/US/other intelligence services would have had a vested interest in keeping tabs on than AN and any other co-located bad stuff.

They couldn’t proactively nail it due to collateral damage.

But they also couldn’t just sit by and watch it get distributed all around the place because a stated effort to use it on every farm for free in Lebanon could easily turn into an unimpeded and endless supply of distributed covert caches of product for malignant purposes.

Maybe it was in limbo for so long because moving it, other than by ship, might have consequences?

 

[Fluff]

What a mess, and now macron turns up promising Christmas tomorrow....

I’m doubtful we will ever know for sure what happened, seems certain that the Big Bang was the AN, the stuff before that, who knows. Presumably all factions have stashes of weapons, dotted about, where better than a bonded warehouse....Lebanon is and always was screwed, it sits in the shadow of some very well armed neighbours, it has a mixed religion population, no major natural resources. In modern times it’s best bet was probably tourism, but all the violence etc has sent them off to nice stable Cyprus.

Was hezza borrowing a few kg, maybe, but why, when they have enough stuff for rockets and warheads coming in ‘somehow’....

I doubt the people have enough oomph to drive out hezbullah, so I don’t relish them trying...

 

[Telmar]

Before the war, Lebanon was an enlightened place where people go banking, shopping, to play money, to dine and drink, to swim, and to ski...And many of these people came from sh!tholes in the Middle East.

 

[muck]

A press release by Germany's Federal Agency for Geosciences (BGR) – which operates sensor stations all over the world to help monitor compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty – confirms the version of the Lebanese government stating the seismologic and infrasonic data gathered during the event is consistent with an explosion of 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate. The BGR says the explosion had a yield of 1.1 kilotons of TNT.

1.1 kilotons amounts to more than ¹/₁₅ of the power of the Hiroshima bomb.

 

[Chazman]

Speaking of which.....

Hey @digrar , have you ever heard anything about efforts to formulate AN in a way to reduce shelf life and efficacy over time?

My limited hands on experience with it reminded me of a discussion with the fellas running the course(just past the IED peak of last decade) of attempts to mitigate misuse thru reformulation efforts(“use it or lose it”). Don’t know if it was real or good idea fairy stuff.

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d go with 500 tons TNT equivalent playing around with the nuke map: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is that Israeli/US/other intelligence services would have had a vested interest in keeping tabs on than AN and any other co-located bad stuff.

They couldn’t proactively nail it due to collateral damage.

But they also couldn’t just sit by and watch it get distributed all around the place because a stated effort to use it on every farm for free in Lebanon could easily turn into an unimpeded and endless supply of distributed covert caches of product for malignant purposes.

Maybe it was in limbo for so long because moving it, other than by ship, might have consequences?

The Baghdad Post seems to think that Iran has already been distributing it with only 300 tons involved in Tuesday's explosion.

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[Chazman]

What a mess, and now macron turns up promising Christmas tomorrow....

I’m doubtful we will ever know for sure what happened, seems certain that the Big Bang was the AN, the stuff before that, who knows. Presumably all factions have stashes of weapons, dotted about, where better than a bonded warehouse....Lebanon is and always was screwed, it sits in the shadow of some very well armed neighbours, it has a mixed religion population, no major natural resources. In modern times it’s best bet was probably tourism, but all the violence etc has sent them off to nice stable Cyprus.

Was hezza borrowing a few kg, maybe, but why, when they have enough stuff for rockets and warheads coming in ‘somehow’....

I doubt the people have enough oomph to drive out hezbullah, so I don’t relish them trying...

Unless the Iranian mullahs get overthrown, it's hard to imagine Hezbollah losing it's grip on Lebanon, sadly.

 

[Chazman]

Hezbollah Hoarded Fertilizer That Blew Up Beirut, Planned to Use it Against Israel in 'Nuclear' Style Attack

townhall.com

 

[Chazman]

The Beirut Blast Is A Reminder That Hezbollah Has Ruined Lebanon

More than any other group in Lebanon, the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah bears responsibility for the conditions that led to the blast.

thefederalist.com

 

[bfc1001]

What a mess, and now macron turns up promising Christmas tomorrow....

Par the course for any would be politician .

 

[Fluff]

Unless the Iranian mullahs get overthrown, it's hard to imagine Hezbollah losing it's grip on Lebanon, sadly.

Precisely, I grew up with Beirut on the news every night, always seemed to be a lot of shooting and no movement.

Better to sit it out, and wait for change elsewhere. Hopefully some money is forthcoming, even if seen as just preventing civil war, as we don’t need more refugees in this region, I can’t imagine Israel would open their borders. Cyprus/turkey/Greece would be hit?

 

[Fluff]

The Baghdad Post seems to think that Iran has already been distributing it with only 300 tons involved in Tuesday's explosion.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

He made the right call, to dive into the water.