Yesterday a massive explosion devastated Beirut, killing at least 100 and injuring thousands. Lebanese officials said the blast came from a 2750 ton stockpile of ammonium nitrate that was stored in the port.
Hezbollah, the Iran backed terrorist organization that has taken over Lebanon, has a history of stockpiling the chemical in different European locations.
#Hezbollah kept three metric tons of ammonium nitrate, the explosive thought to be behind the mega blast in #Beirut this week, in a storehouse in London, until MI5 and the London Metropolitan Police found it in 2015.
Report by @LahavHarkov https://t.co/oGBBZRMHz0
— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) August 5, 2020
Meanwhile, a former CIA operative isn’t buying that ammonium nitrate was the only thing behind the massive blast.
Robert Baer, a former CIA operative with extensive experience in the Middle East, said videos of Tuesday’s blast showed that while ammonium nitrate may have been present in the warehouse, he does not believe it was responsible for the massive explosion that ensued.
Baer said he thinks that there were military munitions and propellants present. He speculated it could have been a weapons cache, but it’s unclear who it belongs to.
“It was clearly a military explosive,” he said. “It was not fertilizer like ammonium nitrate. I’m quite sure of that.”
“You look at that orange ball (of fire), and it’s clearly, like I said, a military explosive.”
Baer noted that white powder seen in the videos of the incident before the major blast are likely an indicator that ammonium nitrate was present and burning. He also noticed a lot of munitions going off ahead of the larger explosion.