
How tons of ammonium nitrate were stranded in Beirut port for years - rectang
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/europe/lebanon-russian-ship-blast-intl/index.html
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rectang
The office of the Director of Customs wrote six letters requesting removal
over several years, but didn't get a response. It looks like the Port
Authority was responsible but there may be court orders involved.

We now know how the ammonium nitrate got there — a Russian ship bound for
Mozambique which ran out of money and got stranded — but we don't yet know
exactly why it was never removed.

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chub500
I guess I don't understand why Lebanon couldn't seize it and resell?

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csense
From the article, the port officials thought they needed a court order to sell
it. And the court system ignored their request for one.

But maybe they were applying to the wrong official, or in the wrong way? For
example, maybe they were supposed to have an attorney file a court case,
instead of having an agency head send a letter to a judge? I have no idea how
Lebanon's law system works.

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sradman
> Maintenance was conducted on the warehouse door just hours before the blast
> on Tuesday, he added.

This looks like a key piece of evidence. Warehouse door maintenance could have
caused the fire seen at the start of the videos of the incident.

Until more evidence is revealed I think “warehouse with 2750 tons of ammonium
nitrate caught fire” is a good hypothesis.

Coulda, shoulda, and speculating about motivations can come later.

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chrisco255
This material is commonly used in IEDs. Was this depot being used to funnel
these materials to supply certain groups?

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corin_
There's no evidence or even speculation (outside of random people guessing)
that there was anything terrorism related (I assume that's what you were
implying) going on with why it was there.

Just corrupt and/or useless people in the jobs that should have removed this
problem from the port a long time ago. No doubt inquiries will go on for some
time looking at where the fault lies.

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chrisco255
This country is known for terrorism, car bombs, assassinations, and broad
violence. So this amount of bomb making material sat unused for 6 years with
no illicit organizations or groups hearing about it or taking advantage of it?
Were regular inventory checks performed on it? What safe guards were in place
to prevent the material from leaking into terrorist hands?

