Source: Al-Mayadeen, Lebanese TV channel pro-Hezbollah, August 5th, 2020
Translation: resistancenews.org
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTNPvuApgNw&w=1280&h=720
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7vf2l2
Transcript:
Greetings.
Anyone who sees these photos will find it hard to believe that they show the Beirut port just 24 hours ago, full of life, before being (completely) destroyed by (the explosion) of (hundreds of) tons of ammonium nitrate, stored in an anarchic manner in warehouse n° 12 for several years.
Beirut was faced with a terrible scene, the explosion causing tens of deaths and thousands of injuries, not to mention the destruction and damage to thousands of homes, institutions and businesses.
What is the history of this (nitrate) cargo? And how did it get to the port?
This cargo has been in the port since 2013, by decision of the Lebanese justice, under the mandate of the former head of government, Najib Miqati, the Minister of Transport Ghazi al-Aridi and the Director General of Customs at the time, Chafiq Mir’i.
A Moldovan ship coming from Georgia and heading for Mozambique was then immobilized when it entered the port of Beirut, carrying tonnes of ammonium nitrate which, after inspection, were prohibited from returning to sea. In addition, the cargo was seized. Then, the Beirut urgent applications judge, Nadim Zweyn, decided to bring the ship into the port and empty its cargo after it was seized by the Baroudi & Associés law firm.
Subsequently, the justice did not respond to requests from the Customs Department to consider moving the cargo. In 2017, the Customs Department sent a written request to the Beirut urgent applications Judge, requiring authorization to re-export the ammonium nitrate or sell it to an explosives factory.
Even more serious, the General Directorate of Security of the Lebanese State sent an urgent report to the former head of government Saad Hariri and his Interior Minister Raya al-Hassan, warning of the dangers these stocks represented, but no one took these warnings seriously.
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“Any amount counts, because a little money here and there, it’s like drops of water that can become rivers, seas or oceans…” Hassan Nasrallah
Certain individuals and ministries have some serious questions to answer. Knowing this cargo was dangerous, why would they not allow it to be moved away? This is the sort of conduct that fuels deep suspicion and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy is very real but until certain questions are answered we are left with theories and a horrible and totally avoidable disaster.
Pepe Escobar posted a thermal imaging video on his FB page showing a bomb hit that area right before the second bigger explosion
I see now FB marked it as false (according to their fact checkers)
Posted where?
So, the nitrate was there for seven years. So, someone wanted it to stay right where it was. It was useful. Useful to whom? How much of it was stored seven years ago and how much was left by the time it blew? What happened to the difference between the two? What was it used for? And by whom? I cannot believe that Hezbollah didn’t know it was there.
@Shimon: “I cannot believe that Hezbollah didn’t know it was there.”
Everybody knew the ticking time bomb was there: but only the Hariri regime did not want it moved. That “Western” capitalist friendly regime was no friend of Hezb’Allah. The idle rich dynasts of Lebanon do not like Hezb because Hezb is not only an active patriotic Resistance army but also a civil movement with a strong social conscience.
If Hariri thought Hezb might find a use for it, the capitalist Hariri regime would have had that nitrate shifted and sold off faster than you can say, Deal!
ok. I would prefer not to think that the stuff belonged to Hezbollah. So tell me why, as you say, “the Hariri regime did not want it moved”.
Simon, that is _the_ question! I cannot tell you why the Hariri regime did not want it moved. Prosecution must ask the Hariri regime — and the judges who blocked urgent applications to have it movend. A wide dragnet investigation to identify high placed criminals in government, plus their non-governmental associates. What ought to have been done to the Bush regime after 911.
We are in this mess because we let Bush, Netanyahoo and BLiar get away with 911.
Here in the UK, there is a feeling among some analysts that this tragic event was the result of Turkish weapons being demolished; that were stored ready to be shipped to Libya. Likely all evidence vapourised, though there remains the fact that this explosion demonstrated oddities:-
https://www.voltairenet.org/article210665.html
Official reporting is “fireworks”.
The kind making nice colors in the sky.
Only the worst of conspiracy theory could envision arm trafficking in lebannon port.
Lol
I heard that on UK Column. I know zilch about explosives but as someone who follows media narratives systematically and attentively, I was struck by the speed with which mainstream media established the following narratives:
1. Accident narrative
1a Israel didn’t do it–before anyone officially suggested that Israel did it
2. Accident due to negligent corrupt Lebanese narrative
3. Accident as in #2 above and this is all Hezbollah’s fault and Lebanon could be paradise without them.
This all happened literally within 12 hours. When I went to sleep they were moving from 1 to 2. By the morning it was fact checked to be #3.
If it wasn’t an accident and it was anyone BUT Israel, especially even remotely traceable to Turkey, the media would come out from under their rocks and be crawling all over it.
Analyzing media narratives helps to establish what it is NOT especially when the narratives have technical and logical holes bigger than in Swiss cheese. It also helps to establish what needs deep investigation:
1. What really caused the “accident”? A pile of fertilizer slumbering for 6 years suddenly goes kaboom with a welder’s torch? Plus a few fireworks? Without fuel oil and a detonator? Then we need to rewrite chemistry textbooks and the trillion dollar defence industry has wasted a lot of time.
2. What is Israel’s role really?
This is absolutely a repeat of 9/11 in terms of the speed of development of ridiculous narratives accompanied by absurd photos: 3 guys standing over a pile of sacks in a warehouse….hello logic????
The UK Column used the smoke colour to say these were xyz explosives and a lot of other people said it wasn’t only ammonium nitrate. That is very likely true. They said Sunnis control that area although MSM say Hezbollah controls that area. To me it seems as if the Hariri regime judges control that area.
In that translation above, it doesn’t make clear that the cargo was not “seized” but it was moved off the ship because it was dangerous (think Texas 1947). Once off the ship, it would take a lot of fuel oil and detonator to blow it up.
The cargo was not seized by Baroudi Law Associates, they were only involved in the release of the crew and repatriation.
The names provided in the article are useful. I am sure all the court documents and paper trail relating to the cargo are there but I personally would not know how to go about researching this and the MSM is certainly not going there either.
@ Harry,
There are several angles on this – including the very well known and very large bunker underneath the warehouse (which Nuttyyahoo pointed to in his 2018 speach, and as illustrated again on Info Wars).
First the bunker – Accesed by the silos and through a set of submerged tunnels (large!) facing the sea. The submerged tunnels have been used for years by Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria (and possibly others) to move weapons from ships (and people) to the bunker, and then elsewhere in Lebanon and also Syria, without being seen by the eyes in the sky.
As with Nuttyyahoos’s speach – this was well known about and not a secret. What was not known (publically) is the type of weapons Iran was transfering to Lebanon and Syria (although clearly Israel knew as they seemed to take out every shipment as soon as it left Lebanon.
Now the Warehouse – The massive stockpile of ‘fireworks’ (small arms munitions and propellents for self loading mostly) is no the issue. The massive stockpile of ‘fertiliser’ is the issue and it was there for a reason.
This acted as a sort of ‘shield’ for the bunker and tunnel complex below the warehouse. Any hit on the warehouse to take out the bunker would cause unacceptable collateral damage – something again Nuttyyahoo spoke about with his ‘Human Shield’ reference.
This deterant worked well for years, so what changed?
Speculaton from security consultants (from Russian Turkey, and the UK) include:
1) Iran supplied a batch of their latest and super accurate missiles to Hezbollah and/or Syria via the port and were in the bunker complex waiting shipment out – Israel took the entire site out using an unknown type of deep penetrator / bunker buster. (Confirmation that the bunker was destroyed by the first explosion can be seen by looking at the flames coming out of the various tunnel access / egress points around the warehouse).
2) Turkey were using the warehouse to offload, and store prior to transit to Libya, some very advanced NATO missiles (of unknown type). These missiles were such a threat to Russian Forces / Proxies in Libya that Russia took the entire site out using an unknown type of deep penetrator / bunker buster, or perhaps even by spec-ops infiltration through the sea tunnels and sabotage.
3) The Russian Proxies were using the bunker complex to tranfer Russian weapons from Syria (very well known already – including even unmarked jets!) and the Russians crossed a Turkish ‘red line’. The Turks, who have access to all of NATO’s tech could have carried out the strike – without a care for the collateral damgage issue which was restraining Israel.
Whatever was going on, there was bunker complex / weapons store / weapons factory under that warhouse which was completely obliterated in the first explosion (see fires locations) and all evidence of just about everything – including the entire bunker complex and see tunnels – was destroyed in the KT equiv blast of the secondary explosion.
All that is now left is a great big hole where a very stratecically import port and underground military facility was was.
Qui Boni – lots of people / natons – including the US Deep State who MAY have claimed responsibility through Trumps ‘bomb’ and ‘Generals’ speach. Certainly the US, above even Russia and Israel would be able to carry out such a strike – especially if key Iranian personnel or weapons were being transfered at the time.
If I remember correctly, the Hariri dynasty had Links: the elder to U$A, the younger to K$A. Lebanon used to be famous in the ME for its banks. I suspect the predator financial class in Beirut may have a temperamental affinity – even political Links – with the predator Anglo Zio Capitalist class in London.
Unfortunately, situations like what was seen in Beruit exist in almost every city, and town around the globe. For example, think how many major U.S. cities are within striking distance of an active nuclear plant, and no effort to mitigate these accident potentials are being made even after Chernobyl, Fukashima, Three Mile Island, etc. I could go on citing examples of dangerous chemical plants, coal piles, HAZMAT dumps, LNG and chem’ tankers, and many other industrial infrastructures all having serious degrees of potential for diaster, but I’ll spare the readers here with the dirty laundry list. Let us just say it is very long. Obviously, our politicians who should be looking out for our welfare, either do not understand the danger potentials of many modern infrastructures, or do not wish to care. To them health, safety, and welfare of populations is simply not a priority.
Watch, instead of learning from this Beruit thing, our “bosses” will find a way to scapegoat the whole thing, and will everage it into their political agenda; all in an effort to avoid looking into their own backyard.
I imagine Hezbollah Secretary General Nasrallah and his close circle of associates are carefully weighing a response to this horrific tragedy that outlines an economic and social plan for the recovery of the country.
Hezbollah will (1) express deep condolences for the loss of life and property (2) condemnation via political commentary that identifies the incompetence of the current Lebanese government (3) how Hezbollah will fully engage its humanitarian capabilities to help the Muslim and Christian people in Beirut (4) call for new elections to remove the entrenched self-serving officials who are incapable or unwilling to fulfill their responsibilities as mandated by the electorate.
This observation appears course and insensitive but that is the nature of political gamesmanship and Hezbollah must exploit it to successful completion in order to save Lebanon from becoming another Libya. Nasrallah has to show that Hezbollah is the party that performs deeds and not just speak vacuous platitudes.
Full spectrum propaganda is called for and it must be relentless until incumbent officials resign from office and new leadership is installed.
wha-whaaaaa ?-?-?
Haven’t you read the news accounts in the western MSM, it was a RUSSIAN ship piloted by VLADIMIR PUTIN. ;-)
The owner was born in Russia (more likely the Soviet Union and maybe even one of the Republics) and this is what the MSM outlets latched onto like a Lamprey.
Removed. Mod.
I do NOT believe that this was a nuclear strike. However, I can believe that Israel took advantage of a very careless Lebanese handling of the nitrate to crack Lebanon open. If you wanted to harm someone, you would go for their nads.
VT is a dodgy site but this video does at least like a conventional (not nuclear) strike. Oh and the caption showing the container cargo ship launching a missile really brough it home for me. This is NOT portraying a current military strike but showing Israel testing launching a missile from a container of a cargo ship. This wreaks to me of Israel dying to use their new toy.
BTW I still think this could also be an accidental strike by Israel where they meant to hit the fireworks warehouse so that they would later claim they hit a missile factory and they did not realize the nitrate storage was so close. Of course I do not know but this video looks better than the previous Loch Ness Monster stuff Gordon Duff was presenting.
I think complacency must be the biggest and worst factor here. It always seems to be the case, in these ammonium nitrate explosions.
Ammonium nitrate is considered ‘safe’ around the chemistry lab. You can have a jar of it on the shelf, with no special precautions. You can hit it with a hammer, or play a flame on it, and nothing will happen. It is a salt, so it probably accelerates rust and corrosion. And you can put it in a flask, and heat it over a bunsen burner, and it just quietly fizzes away as it decomposes into its component gases. It gives off the interesting gas nitrous oxide, but that is another story. It melts, and decomposes, and does so quite smoothly and reliably, in small quantities.
These properties make it attractive as an industrial explosive — it is what Alfred Nobel was looking for when he diluted the extremely dangerous nitroglycerin with various inert ingredients. It can be transported and handled by industrial workers without any special precautions. It only becomes hazardous when several tonnes of it are stored in the same location. — they add a dash of hydrocarbon fuel to react with the extra oxygen and give it a little more kick, but even that mixture is still quite safe in an industrial setting.
Complacency is the enemy here, in every one of these industrial accidents. The chemists said it was safe, so there’s no need to rush into anything, no urgency to farm it out into bunkers, or distribute it to farmers or miners…
It’s like global warming, or the mal-distribution of wealth among the population, or maybe the asteroid near-miss scheduled for Nov. 2. It’s like peak oil. There’s no apparent danger in the short term, so nothing to worry about.