Terror Explosion rocks central Beirut

[Chazman]

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?

Thousands of Lebanese have already made Cyprus their new home.

 

[Connaught Ranger]

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?

Explosive residue would now be there in gigantic proportions from the AN that went up, if your hoping to id what triggered the explosion.
UNIFIL has no remit or mandate to go on Lebanese State property and do any such testing, for years they have been forced to follow the host countries (Lebanon) directions in particular with regards Hezbollah terrorist activities in and around the Southern border, UN Patrols cant go where they like without it being cleared by the military (i.e. Hezbollah local commanders, who get there power via the Hezbollah dominated "government" in Beirut, 95% of the local Lebanese Militia Forces were disbanded and ordered to hand in their weapons, Hezbollah in fact increased in size and weaponry and is considered to be part of the official armed forces of Lebanon.

 

[Flagg]

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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‘My thoughts on that are:

1) The event seemed like a LOT more than 300 tons of AN(roughly 100 ton TNT equivalent). From what I’ve read since my estimate of 500 tons of TNT equivalent, it’s looking like that would be an extremely low end estimate.

2) Due to Iran’s Hezbollah proxy with its overwhelming influence over Lebanon, it is clearly in Iran’s best interest to try and manage information particularly around Iran/Hez culpability.

3) Iran has massive influence over Iraq, which would flow thru into Iraqi media as well. So it makes sense to use Iraqi media to plant the seed of a story that Iran/Hez were solving the problem before the [Insert convenient Satan Mossad here] wrecked everything.

One of the best stories I read was how Iran/Hez gained influence in Lebanon decades ago that included Hez window glass replacement service when Israeli bombs shattered them.

It was a great bit of hearts and minds influence building, gaining influence “deposits” with every window replaced.

This could be a significant influence “withdraw” if not closing out the account.

 

[digrar]

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.

I haven't, not to say its not going on in the back ground, but generally, we run a hand to mouth system anyway, no one wants it sitting around for anything over a month or so as it gets clumpy (it's shelf life is significantly longer than that, but we like it fresh, it's much easier to get it through the system when it is free flowing) and no one wants it sitting around because it's tying up cash, make it, use it, invoice it, make more of it. $$$$

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?

If sensors have read a 1.1kt blast, then essentially the whole 2750tn has gone up. If they're saying it was 1.1 because they're assuming it all went up, then I don't have any worries believing a significantly smaller stock pile could make that hole.
Depending on that fire, depending on how widespread it was, how much of that AN was melting and getting to the point where it could deflagrate, depending on how badly that pril had solidified, all impacts on the VOD of the blast traveling through the AN, as to how much actually went off and how much was just carried away with the blast, to be either burned up in the fire ball, spread over down town, or washed into the harbour.

 

[Chazman]

Hezbollah denies any involvement. So there you go, nothing to see here, folks. Everyone go home.

'No cache, no nothing': Hezbollah leader denies storing weapons at Beirut port at center of explosion

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “categorically” denied any involvement in the Beirut explosion in his first appearance since the blast.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

 

[Chazman]

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[BravoZulu]

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

Absolutely the safest place for him, let the blast wave pass over and watch out for debris

 

[morris]

Beirut explosion: Nearly 60,000 sign petition to place Lebanon under French control

Nearly 60,000 people have signed a petition calling for Lebanon to once again be placed under French mandate following the Beirut port explosion that

english.alarabiya.net

 

[IDF_TANKER]

If this goes through, which I’m not sure is even theoretically possible, this will quickly become Christian-French conspiracy, rather than Hezbolla one.

 

[Chazman]

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[Ivan le Fou]

Even though Hezbollah may have had weapons in or near the warehouse, it does not change the fact that these 3000t of AN had been sitting there for years with non-existent safety measures.

 

[muck]

If this goes through, which I’m not sure is even theoretically possible, this will quickly become Christian-French conspiracy, rather than Hezbolla one.

Imagine being so desperate and frustrated with your government you'd invite your former colonial power to take the reigns again…

 

[Ivan le Fou]

Aun is apparently starting to introduce the hypothesis that is was caused by "foreign interference".

edit: Ok, so he did it. "Possibly caused by a missile". He also rejected any kind of international investigation because "it would dilute the truth".

 

[Fluff]

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2750 tons, thats very roughly 1000 lorries. Are The Juice all blind? Could try the great escape, a bit up each trouser leg....

 

[Mike1976]

Beirut explosion: Nearly 60,000 sign petition to place Lebanon under French control

Nearly 60,000 people have signed a petition calling for Lebanon to once again be placed under French mandate following the Beirut port explosion that

english.alarabiya.net

View attachment 243895

All countries in that region except one were better off under colonial rule than they are now, so it's good to see that common sense is a thing, even in the Middle East

 

[Chazman]

2750 tons, thats very roughly 1000 lorries. Are The Juice all blind? Could try the great escape, a bit up each trouser leg....

They've had 7 years. I wouldn't be surprised if some of it had been moved around by Hezbollah.

 

[Chazman]

Apparently, tunnels and bunkers under the blast zone.

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[Chazman]

The Lebanese people are rightfully pissed at their government, at Hezbollah and Iran.

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[muck]

Aun is apparently starting to introduce the hypothesis that is was caused by "foreign interference".

edit: Ok, so he did it. "Possibly caused by a missile". He also rejected any kind of international investigation because "it would dilute the truth".

Pathetic. There is no shortage of people watching the whole thing as it unfolded; none of them mentioned anything of the like.

 

[morris]

First half of city gets blown up, then they try to burn the rest and don't miss a happy selfie opportunity.