Beirut Explosion

Asharq Al-Awsat
Interpol has issued a wanted notice for two Russians and a Portuguese man over explosive material that had been shipped to Beirut and stored at the city’s port for six years until it exploded in August, the state-run National News Agency reported Tuesday.

The Aug. 4 explosion killed 200 people, injured thousands and caused wide destruction in Beirut.

NNA said the Interpol-issued Red Notices were for the owner and captain of the Rhosus, the ship that carried the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate to Lebanon in 2013, as well as a Portuguese nitrate trader who visited the port's warehouse in Beirut in 2014 where the material was stored.

The notice is a non-binding request to law enforcement agencies worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a fugitive. It is not an arrest warrant and does not require authorities to arrest a wanted suspect.

Lebanon’s state prosecutor, Ghassan Khoury, had asked Interpol to issue the notices, NNA said.
The agency did not give the names of the three but local media posted the notices identifying them as the vessel's former captain Boris Prokoshev and Igor Grechushkin, a Russian businessman residing in Cyprus who had bought the cargo ship in 2012. The Portuguese man was identified as Jorge Manuel Mirra Neto Moreira.

The ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive material used in fertilizers, was not even supposed to be in Lebanon. When the Rhosus set sail from the Georgian Black Sea port of Batumi, it was bound for the Mozambican port of Beira.

Prokoshev, the former captain, told The Associated Press days after the blast that he joined the ship in Turkey in 2013, after the previous crew quit over unpaid wages. Grechushkin, who resides in Cyprus, was paid $1 million to transport the dangerous cargo from Georgia to Mozambique, the former captain said.

Nearly 30 people, most of them port and customs officials, have been arrested since the blast. Last month, the prosecutor investigating the blast, Fadi Sawwan, filed charges against Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers, accusing them of negligence leading to the deaths of those who perished in the explosion.

 
Israeli warplanes flew over a number of Lebanese regions, the National News Agency reported.

21 Jan 2021

21 Jan 2021

21 Jan 2021

21 Jan 2021
 
Recently there has been a flourish of newspaper articles, all based on research by Feras Hatoum . He's a Lebanese journalist and film maker who has probed into who the owners were of the ammonium nitrate that detonated last August. It appears these owners have ties to the Assad administration in Syria.

Probe suggests links between Assad regime, Beirut blast
LONDON: The London-based company used to ship the ammonium nitrate that caused last August’s devastating explosion in Beirut has been linked to three individuals known to have ties to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

An investigation by Lebanese filmmaker Firas Hatoum uncovered connections between London-based Savaro Ltd. and three figures who had been central to efforts to bolster Assad since the earliest months of the Syrian war.

Hatoum’s findings for the first time raise the possibility that the 2,750 tons of nitrate that leveled much of Beirut’s port and killed 200 people may have been a by-product of Syrian officials’ attempts to procure nitrate to use in weapons.

Joint Russian-Syrian citizens George Haswani, Mudalal Khuri and his brother Imad Khuri have all been previously sanctioned by the US for supporting Assad’s war effort.

continued....

Similar sources (out of many others):
Beirut blast chemicals possibly linked to Syrian businessmen - report, company filings
Syrian businessmen linked to firm that bought Beirut explosives
Businessmen with ties to Assad linked to Beirut port blast cargo

In Dutch:
Was de explosieve stof van de ramp in Beiroet eigenlijk bedoeld voor Syriës dictator Assad?
[...]
Filmmaker Hatoum surmises that the ammonium nitrate did not end up in the port of Beirut by chance, but was purchased for the benefit of President Assad, to be used in the war in Syria.

Too many assumptions, warns Nick Donovan, a British journalist who previously charted the Khouri brothers' business empire. 'Sharing an address in a corporate office building by itself says little. 'Further investigation is needed, with the starting hypothesis that there is no relationship.'

What is certain in the meantime is that controversial Syrian businessmen can operate freely in London. On the day Lebanon was glued to the tube for Hatoum's documentary, Savaro requested closure. The company that bought up 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate is trying to disappear from the face of the earth, elusive to journalists and investigative agencies.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
 
Recently there has been a flourish of newspaper articles, all based on research by Feras Hatoum . He's a Lebanese journalist and film maker who has probed into who the owners were of the ammonium nitrate that detonated last August. It appears these owners have ties to the Assad administration in Syria.

Probe suggests links between Assad regime, Beirut blast


Similar sources (out of many others):
Beirut blast chemicals possibly linked to Syrian businessmen - report, company filings
Syrian businessmen linked to firm that bought Beirut explosives
Businessmen with ties to Assad linked to Beirut port blast cargo

In Dutch:
Was de explosieve stof van de ramp in Beiroet eigenlijk bedoeld voor Syriës dictator Assad?
This sounds like the makings of another Assad-did-it conspiracy theory. Such also happened after 'someone' detonated a massive explosion in Beirut in 2005, killing the former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.

That solitary 'surgical strike' effectively ended the Lebanese govt's alliance with Syria, commenced a (fruitless) UN investigation into 'suspected' Syrian govt involvement in that assassination, and led to Assad's isolation on the international stage.

The years-long diversionary focus on Assad being to blame for that 2005 Beirut bombing effectively provided the 'ideological basis' for the brutal tactics that followed (color revolution protests, proxy military intervention, ISIS, overt military intervention, etc) to unseat Assad.
 
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At least five Israeli F-35 fighter jets have violated the Lebanese airspace.

25 Jan 2021

25 Jan 2021

25 Jan 2021
 
Israeli drone exploded over the southern Lebanon after Israeli warplanes flew over a number of Lebanese regions.

Israeli warplanes are flying over Nabatieh, Iqlim al-Tuffah and the southern coast and have launched mock raids at very low altitudes

3 Feb 2021

3 Feb 2021

3 Feb 2021
 
The Israeli warplanes flew over a number of Lebanese regions after the Israeli military held a drill on the Lebanese border.

10 Feb 2021

10 Feb 2021
 
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