Beirut Tragedy: Why Were Explosives Stored in the City's Port?

"While I was sitting with my friend in his office, which is about four or five kilometers away from the port, the ground shook beneath us like an earthquake caused by a huge explosion coming from within the earth. My friend and I looked at each other, but before we could speak another wave blew up like a storm, shattering the windows and doors. We fell to the ground as the wave shot its way through to the other door. It was terrifying.”

These are the words of IranWire correspondent Imad Shidiyaq, who survived the massive explosion in Beirut on the night of August 4. Reports from some Lebanese media say the potentially explosive material had been confiscated several years before, with some rumors stating that the material had been from a Russian-owned vessel in the port and had remained there because of a commercial dispute. But other reports speculate that it could have been stored in the port by a militant group planning to use it for hostile operations. There have also been widespread unconfirmed rumors of Israeli involvement. 

Data collected by the US Geological Survey showed the massive explosion created seismic waves equivalent to a 3.3-magnitude earthquake, which Shidiyaq’s account confirms.  

IranWire spoke to eyewitnesses who indicate there were two successive explosions, the second of which caused a wave that led to catastrophic damage, destroying around 20 percent of the city, according to one press photographer. 

 

Was it Ammonium Nitrate?

Al-Manar TV, which is affiliated to Lebanese Hezbollah, attributed the disaster to "a fire that caused an explosion at a fireworks warehouse in Unit 12 in Beirut Port, which soon led to another explosion involving tanks that contained a nitrate compound." It was this that caused the big explosion, according to Al-Manar.

Al-Mayadeen TV, which is also close to the party, quoted a security source who said that "highly explosive materials, which were confiscated more than nine years ago, were what exploded at Beirut Port." It added that the volume of the confiscated materials amounted to about 50 tons, and that experts had indicated there was a risk from such materials having remained at Beirut Port four months ago. However, at the time of reporting the danger, the experts received no response from authorities. 

Official accounts give conflicting information about the volume of the materials confiscated, and the date of their confiscation. One said they came from a Russian vessel in 2011, while a second said the material had been at the port since 2014. This account was also raised by Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab, who said he would not anticipate investigations into "the dangerous warehouse." Another account said the material had been there since 2016. Over the course of the day, port officials who have worked at the site since 2014 have been placed under house arrest while investigations get underway.

A document published in 2015 by a specialist website reporting on the shipping industry for freight companies and their staff, as well as their legal teams, stated that in September 2013, a vessel carrying 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate from Mozambique to Georgia was forced to dock at Beirut Port due to a technical failure on the ship identified by the captain while at sea. Following Lebanese authorities’ inspection of the ship, the vessel was blocked from continuing its journey. A legal dispute between the owner company and the shipping company ensued, keeping the case in limbo. According to the site, the goods remained at the port.

 

Is Ammonium Explosive?

In the form in which it is usually sold, ammonium nitrate is not an explosive material. However, it readily forms explosive compounds when combined with explosive materials such as aluminum powder or fuel oil. It forms a range of different properties depending on the material it interacts with or with which it is combined. 

Ammonium nitrate is primarily used in agriculture as a fertilizer as it is relatively stable in most conditions and is not expensive to manufacture. It is also used in industrial blasting such as for mining, quarry work, and civil construction, accounting for 80 percent of all industrial explosives used in the United States.

But in addition, ammonium nitrate can be used as the chief material in the manufacture of explosives, mines, and weapons.

If the figure of 2,750 tons is correct, then the August 4 explosion would make it a bigger disaster than that experienced in the Port of Texas City in 1947, when a shipment of 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate onboard a ship at the port near Galveston killed approximately 580 people and injured more than 4,000, according to the US Treasury Department investigation at the time.

Since 1900, there have been more than 20 other explosions around the world involving the substance, the largest of which were in China and Belgium. In the Belgium disaster, which took place in 1942, 189 people were killed. 

 

How Did the Materials Explode?

Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi denied any suggestion that Israel might be responsible for the explosion in Beirut.

Speaking on Channel 12 News in Israel, he said, "There is no reason not to believe the reports from Beirut that this was an accident." Other officials confirmed these statements to various media outlets, with one of them telling CNN: "Israel has nothing to do with the incident."

However, none of the accounts mentioned the cause that led to the second explosion (the ammonium nitrate explosion), with the exception of the media close to Hezbollah, which attributed it to a fire at the fireworks warehouse. 

Eyewitnesses told IranWire they saw a plane that broke the sound barrier just before hearing the explosion. A woman called Ghada Haddad posted on social media that she had seen a plane followed by a huge explosion.

According to a brigadier general and explosives expert in the Lebanese army IranWire spoke to, "an earthquake caused by an explosion in Beirut and the surrounding cities lasted for about eight seconds, and strengthens the hypothesis of the cause being an air-to-ground bunker buster missile, which can penetrate approximately 30 meters underground. It hit an area containing specific weapons, which destabilized the ammonium nitrate, causing the explosion. It is believed that Hezbollah is responsible for these and it probably stores other explosive materials as well.” The source asked to remain anonymous. 

US President Donald Trump said the explosion might have been caused by a bomb, according to army generals to whom he had spoken. 

Press photographer Khaldoun Al-Batal told IranWire he was sure the first explosion was caused by a missile fired by a warplane in flight. He says he is is confident he heard the missile being fired. 

 

Hezbollah and the Love of Ammonium

The Lebanese Prime Minister has announced that those responsible for causing the explosion at the "dangerous warehouse" will be held accountable, but it is still not known why this dangerous quantity of materials remained at the port since 2013.

The incident is reminiscent of the German government's process of outlawing Hezbollah for terrorist activities, which included the storage of hundreds of kilograms of ammonium nitrate in southern Germany in May 2019.

At the time, German authorities accused Hezbollah of using these substances in the manufacture of explosive materials, as well as money laundering and illegal trade.

In 2019, the Daily Telegraph revealed that British police and the domestic intelligence service (MI5) had discovered thousands of disposable ice packs containing three tons of ammonium nitrate in 2015. It confirmed that MI5 and the Metropolitan Police had carried out investigations for several months and, following on from the "covert intelligence operation," established a link between Iran-backed Hezbollah and the individuals who they arrested in 2015 for storing the tons of explosive materials in a bomb factory on the outskirts of London.

In 2015, Cypriot authorities sentenced Hussein Bassam Abdullah, 26, a Lebanese member of the military wing of Lebanese Hezbollah, to six years in prison, after he confessed to terrorism charges, after 8.2 tons of ammonium nitrate was found at his home.

On January 12, 2012, Thai police at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand arrested Atris Hussein, a suspected Hezbollah operative, and another suspect fled the scene. Elsewhere in Bangkok, the authorities confiscated large quantities of chemical explosives consisting of ammonium nitrate and urea fertilizer, prompting the US and Israeli authorities to issue emergency alerts warning their citizens of a possible terrorist attack at the time.