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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

Ammonium nitrate is a popular readily available ingredient for many militant groups that want to improvise a bomb. The Oklahoma City bomb was ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel or heavy fuel oil. Not like this is something exclusive to Hezbollah. In this particular case the instance of the ship and its cargo that were abandoned at the port in 2014 are well documented and no significant links to Hezbollah have been documented yet.

Anyways, if Hebzollah wanted the ammonium nitrate for their own use, surely they would have found a way some time in the past five years to remove it from the port in 1 to 5 ton quantities and store it somewhere in more rural areas outside of metro Beirut.

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I mean, just the fact that this stuff was stored out in the open .. and 'everyone knew' it was there. That is just a major security risk.

Its not like Lebanon doesn't have enemies, who would have benefited greatly from this incident.

If it weren't so tragic, the stupidity would be hilarious. 2700+ tons of explosive material, parked right in the most strategic spot, in a city well known for having enemies ...

> Anyways, if Hebzollah wanted the ammonium nitrate for their own use, surely they would have found a way some time in the past five years to remove it

They did find a way -

"Lebanon's LBCI-TV reported on August 5 that, according to preliminary information, the fire that set off the explosion was started accidentally by welders who were closing off a gap that allowed unauthorized entry into the warehouse."

That certainly solved the unauthorized entry problem.

A Lebanese friend told me of a link. This explosion came 3 days before the UN tribunal's verdict on the murder of the former prime minister Hariri in 2005. "Everyone knows" the port is controlled by the Amal party, who is allied with Hezbollah. That party is led by Nabih Berri, who has been Speaker of Parliament since 1992, and who fought the formation of the tribunal in 2007. And anyway, just several hours ago, the UN has announced it is delaying its verdicts on the assassination trial until the 18th. We'll see how that goes.

Well, it could also just be an accident likely due to negligence/incompetence. The port probably wasn't run to the highest standards before the coronavirus, and the ongoing primary and secondary crises from that may have just been the final blow needed for something bad to happen.

An explosion destroying the main city of the country as a way to postpone a verdict by 2 weeks makes little to no sense.

If hezb wanted these materials they could probably make them themselves too.

It's a lot of material and they're strapped for cash. Note the material wasn't sold for years, despite no problem to do so.

Firstly, its a terrible explosive for actual military use. If you can pull strings on this scale, you can obtain something more practical.

If you are planning terrorist attacks, you don't need a mountain of the stuff, because there is no plausible scenario for using it in such quantities.

Secondly, if they had a plan to use it, they would have moved it somewhere sensible, and have it guarded / stored properly, they would make sure its not lost in a terrible accident.

Hezbollah is in de facto control of the port, and is also in control of the national government.

They didn't need to move it, as it was already placed in a convenient location, whether by design or happenstance.

When they assassinated Rafiq Hariri, they used 2 tons of the explosive in Beirut, so they have no qualms about causing collateral damage.

https://manilastandard.net/news/top-stories/330353/hariri-as...

That still makes no sence, no-one stores whats essentially a small nuke in the most populated city.

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