ICBPS– Haunting videos that went viral on social media indicated massive blasts that happened less than a few minutes on Tuesday evening, August 4, 2020. Two explosions —30 seconds apart, heard as far as Cyprus— devastated the port in the Lebanese capital of Beirut destroying buildings for miles from the scene of the explosion and killing over 157 people and injuring 5,000 others was expected to rise as search-and-rescue operations continued for people listed missing under the rubble in areas near the port, and displacing at least 300,000 from their homes. The casualties included non-Lebanese nationals.

The massive explosions —caused by 2,750 tonnes of Ammonium Nitrate stored unsafely since 2013 “like a Time Bomb”— in the Lebanese port [has ruled by Tehran’s proxy Hezbollah] were seen from the Cyprus coast, some 207kms away, and heard inland from the capital Nicosia.

The “Russian” ship’s cargo of dangerous Ammonium Nitrate was stranded in Beirut port for years —fueled the destructive explosions and rocked the Lebanese capital— was one of the largest [accidental] blasts ever recorded.

The buildings are in ruin, and objects including cars jumped, eyewitnesses described the horror of Beirut explosion as a humanitarian catastrophe. One of the ships docked at the port were damaged in the blasts, belonging to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

“Lebanese authorities were ‘very well’ aware of the dangers posed by the vessel’s cargo,” Al Jazeera quoted Boris Prokoshev, the former captain of the ship that brought almost 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate to Beirut —Prokoshev blamed the Lebanese authorities for the blast —the biggest Ammonium Nitrate explosions since 2000.

The senior Lebanese officials said on Tuesday declared that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored since 2014 [because of a court order] at the port without safety measures —blamed for the powerful blasts. The countdown to the humanitarian catastrophe started six years ago.

“You look at that orange ball (of fire), and it’s clearly, like I said, a military explosive,” CNN quoted the former CIA, Robert Baer.  There’s still no evidence that this was an attack, according to Baer.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese sign petitions calling for Lebanon to be placed under French mandate as anti-government protests broke out in the capital. Protesters clashed with the Lebanese security forces on Thursday, anti-riot forces deployed tear gas on dozens of people near parliament.  The Lebanese government has taken 16 individuals into custody as part of an [alleged] investigation into the deadly Beirut port warehouse explosions, the number of Beirut port officials are being placed under house arrest, pending investigation. Lebanon PM Hassan Diab says those responsible will pay the price.

It’s what we know about the Beirut [the capital of a country with a poverty rate up to 80 percent] explosion so far. The devastating blasts came during Lebanese unprecedented economic crisis [unemployment stood at 25%], frequent outages, and COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic – with 5,672 total infections, more than 70 deaths, and 1,974 recovered, allegedly. Lebanon is a country that is facing such crisis as well as a serious food crisis. The humanitarian disaster blew up the Lebanese main wheat port and its grain silos and rocked the capital of [over half a million] hungry children.

Similar blasts happened before. In 1947, an explosion in Texas City, Texas, killed at least 581 people and injured 3,500 after two cargo ships carrying Ammonium Nitrate caught fire. In 2013, a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, caught fire and exploded, killing 15 people. In 2015, disaster struck in Tianjin, China, when a fertilizer explosion killed 165 people at a busy seaport, according to N.Y. Times.

It Could Happen Elsewhere!

“Caused the blast by [a possible] negligence? Not at all, if you [the least] passed a high school degree. The lethal-devastated explosions occurred in the Lebanese waterfront where the local officials totally lost domination as the Islamic Republic of Iran’s proxy Hezbollah has reigned since 2006.”

“Only Hezbollah knows what entered, took out, or stored at the warehouse —belonging to the Tehran-backed paramilitary Lebanese group— that caused the explosion,” UNIKA quoted the prominent Iranian analyst and journalist Amir Taheri based in the U.K.

The chemical compound (Ammonium Nitrate) is widely used in mining explosions as well as “Terrorist Attacks.” 

Four years ago, Hassan Nasrallah, the Sec. Gen. of Iran regime-sponsored Lebanese paramilitary Hezbollah threatened to blow up Israel, targeting tanks in the northern Israeli Haifa port [home to the country’s most significant industrial estate] storing Ammonia Nitrate. The city [located storage area containing material which could be exploded with ten percent of the force of Hiroshima]. 

Islamic Republic of Iran’s scarecrow had obviously threatened to destroy Haifa [home to some 900,000], killing tens of thousands of people. The strawman described it as a nuclear bomb and emphasized that they possessed it. He had vowed bloody retaliation for U.S. killing of terrorist IRGC’s Qassem Soleimani.

Since early 2017, the global terrorist group Hezbollah—established by Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and remains dependent on IRI’s finance and support has been financed by the Qatari government for weapon deliveries which caused the death of hundreds of U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Lebanon.

The Beirut blast has been linked to a large supply of confiscated and unsecured explosive material which was stored in a warehouse at the city’s port, close to populated areas. The question is, why the harmful-fatal shipment was loaded to Beirut and stored for a long-time without safety measures!? Why should a terrorist paramilitary group – with an anti-Israel and anti-U.S. agenda govern such a vital bottleneck?!

The award-winning Iranian-Canadian human rights advocate and freelance journalist, Shabnam Assadollahi tweets: “Hezbollah moved the explosives from Georgia to Beirut where on Aug 4th the warehouse with some 3000 tons of explosives was blasted. I’m 100% sure the regime in Iran and Hezbollah collaborated in this tragedy, but I wonder if Erdogan is also involved.”

Resilience has always been the lie we have been fed and that we continue to tell ourselves in order to keep functioning under a state so corrupt it cannot provide a bare minimum of public or social services,” wrote the Beirut-based writer Lina Mounzer. 

Since 1979, the Islamic Revolution took power in Iran, wherever some malicious activity happens, there are traces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  

“The Lebanese Hezbollah has followed Islamic Republic of Iran’s pattern as IRGC uses the residential areas to store military equipment and armament as “Human Shield“ tactics to protect its bases and facilities,“ says the military expert and editorial member of London-based Kayhan Newspaper, Hamed Mohammadi. “Tehran has taught its proxies how they can defend themselves and their equipment as one of their main methods to fight,“ Mohammadi added.

In mid-July, Fox News reported that at least 28 new detected missile launching sites belonging to Hezbollah located in civilian areas in Beirut.

Assadollahi also wrote in her article: “Time to declare the Apartheid Kleptocratic Islamic Regime in Iran, illegitimate. Reinvigorating a greater North America is vital to any anti-access strategy against the Islamic regime of and Hezbollah’s advancement in the Western Hemisphere. To protect the peace and security of the world, the cancer—of the Islamic Republic of Iran— must be removed, before it’s too late!”

Beirut destructive blast is a wake-up call for the entire world. The international community must take action now before it’s too late.