Beirut Port Bomb Plot? part 1
February 22, 2023
(rough, incomplete)
last edits 2/26
The August 4, 2020 Beirut Port explosion is said to be one the 6th biggest non-nuclear blasts in human history. For anyone who needs a reminder, it looked like this:
It fairly wrecked Beirut, killing 218 people and wounding some 7,000. It left 300,000 homeless, and destroyed enormous grain reserves, amid a financial crisis and peak COVID-19 infections, leading to fresh street protests and the sitting government's resignation. The explosion is generally blamed on Lebanese government incompetence, and used as a basis for further sanctions by parties inside and especially outside of Lebanon. Coercive efforts at "accountability" and "reform" increasingly exacerbate the financial crisis that's punishing everyone.
It's a huge story, and one people don't understand as well as they think. Most readings assume this was accidental, but considering the outcome and its usefulness to some political agendas, and considering the details considered below and in part 2, this could have been a deliberate act of terrorism that's gone not just unpunished but rewarded. I'm not entirely certain that's the case, but at the very least, it merits better consideration than it's received.
Widely cited starting points for my visual-based review: 2 videos produced by Forensic Architecture:
"FAV1" Nov. 17, 2020 FA with Mada Masr - The Beirut Port Explosion ← Forensic Architecture (forensic-architecture.org) MediaPart video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mQ60wNgKrQ - Explosion de Beyrouth : le désastre reconstitué - YouTube
"FAV2" Feb. 13, 2023
"Our new study of the #BeirutPortExplosion conducted with @FebrayerNetwork uses leaked documents, OSI and fire dynamics simulations to cast doubt on the widespread claims that shoddy work by Syrian welders caused the fire which triggered the deadly blast.
Mada Masr again partners. https://twitter.com/MadaMasr/status/1625044277762957312
You'll follow my analysis better after watching their visualization in FAV1.The visual work in both seems sound, is quite detailed, and beautifully rendered. As I've seen before, it's where inference, imagination, and political bias might enter the equation that Eyal Weizman's Forensic Architecture can behave like Bellingcat - bolstering the official narrative they're somehow beholden to, with selective use of inherently valid methods, and just ignoring any evidence that doesn't fit. Sometimes they just use nonsense, beautifully illustrated; the Douma gas cylinder "grid pattern" that proves airdrop is a prime example. It's just sad how few people - I guess including FA themselves - fail to grasp the idiocy of this celebrated brainfart. Am I just incapable of explaining it right?
How the Bomb was Assembled
I'll be brief with the complex and murky story about how 2,750 tons of Ammonium Nitrate (AN) got there. It arrived at the port in 2013 on a poorly managed ship - the MV Rhosus - with contested owners, carrying Georgian-produced AN bought for mining in Mozambique . The ship was damaged, then abandoned with its cargo and crew, who had to live on the ship for about a year, as the cargo was placed in Warehouse 12 in 2014. It's a strange story.
It was headache Lebanon's port had to deal with, and it apparently didn't do so well. There's a record of inept management following that, as revealed in leaked reports and told widely in the media. These stories are relevant and worth reviewing, but are not necessarily trustworthy or the complete story. And we can skip the details here to focus on what might be new to a lot of people.
The AN came in giant one-ton sacks hoisted by cranes, labeled "Nitroprill HD," manufactured in Georgia (former SSR). This seems to mimic "Nitropril", made in Australia and designed for explosive uses, especially in mining. (Bruno Tetrais on Twitter) The shipment had been ordered for a mining operation in Mozambique. (Wikipedia). So it was not the more common, lower purity kind used as fertilizer - it was designed to explode, under controlled conditions. And there was 2,750 tons of it to start. The Lebanese Army should have had to sign off on its entry, although reports suggest they never did so, and even refused later requests to help relocate the stuff.
This massive cargo would only become truly explosive under certain conditions combining: extreme heat - excess humidity - the presence of combustible fuels or explosive - open flame. It's not usually so hard to keep these things apart. But the AN was reportedly stored in warehouse 12 alongside other seized or abandoned materials, including:
- 23 tons of fireworks
- 5 rolls of slow-burning detonation cord (rep. one mile of fuse each)
- 1,000 car tyres
- 50 tons of Ammonium Phosphate (not a fire or reactivity hazard in itself)
- 5 tons tea and coffee (all per FAV1, and again via "reports")
- Also kerosene and hydrochloric acid are reported, in unspecified amounts (NYT via HRW report)
As I gather, a simple spark landing on the heavy sack could hardly trigger an explosion. It would take the kind of massive fire that somehow occurred just then, and/or other modifications, like flammable fuel poured into the AN. Ammonium Nitrate is made and shipped all over the world in huge amounts, and frequently stored in bulk. It's surely not done to standards in every other case, yet a blast like this is reasonably rare. It takes a special confluence of circumstances.
Warehouse 12 at the port of Beirut had all the ingredients for that. Arranged the wrong way, they would constitute a bomb of massive power, so that a small fire of innocent origin could set it all off.
Syrian refugee and welder Raed al-Ahmad, one of those long-suspected of accidentally starting the fire: "If someone had said anything to me about explosives, I wouldn't even stand there. It is a death sentence." https://twitter.com/ForensicArchi/status/1625114698688389121 The AN bag labels are all in English, with no Arabic. But even most Syrians can make out some English, and universal signs appear - keep dry, something about fire (fire sensitive?), something fire-like (I can read oxidant). The layman might have guessed the danger, but it's also quite plausible he would not.
Obviously, you shouldn't leave it to some welder - or thief, or vandal - whether or not a warehouse bomb is accidentally or intentionally set off. Security, oversight, and then internal safety features - like some freakin' sprinklers - and fire response as needed, should be able to keep any random fire from doing that. So clearly, some things went wrong at Warehouse 12.
Maximum Packing of AN?
Forensic Architecture's 2020 video (FAV1) sought to describe "a makeshift bomb, on the scale of a warehouse, awaiting detonation." The video starts with an impressive modeling and correlation of AN sacks photographed in Dec. 2019 and Feb. 2020. From there, they assume all 2,750 tons unloaded remained to the end. 243 bags were modeled, and "the remaining 2,507" were plotted in between, shown packed as tight as possible, with no gaps. I estimate somewhat over 1,200 dots in their mapping (as shown below - note each filled bay has 8 rows of 34). That's about half the total, so it's mainly plotted 2 bags high, as in photos.
The video cites widespread international safety standards mandating blocks of 300-500 tons or less, separated by spaces, arguing that this was ignored at Warehouse 12. But the photos used don't clearly support this.
One view from December suggests spaces that are not fully visible, but where no 2-high sacks appear. When the sacks are modeled, these come out as suggested alleys between blocks (see below - red boxes), with one block seen fully. It would be about 4 or probably 5 sacks wide. Assuming it's square and 2 bags deep = 32 or maybe 50 tons per block, but with narrow spaces between. That could be illusion, but conversely, the other photos from February might also show a similar spacing, and the foreshortened view just makes it unclear.
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That would surely violate norms, but assumptions aren't facts. Yet at 11:19 they cite this imagined lack of proper spacing, and the imagined area's stretching so near to flammable and explosive materials, as a "FACT" (emphasis in narration) that "highlights the substantial and sustained state negligence which led to the formulation of the makeshift bomb." Can't you just feel how much they care about truth and justice?
How the Bomb was Quietly Weakened
They Did Nothing?
More significant than possible spacing would be the much sought-after removal of this dangerous material. This allegedly never happened, even after requests in 2015 and 2016, even after the photos showing the sacks in early 2020 were published, and even after a dire warning on July 20 of that year.
The ever-vigilant Ken Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch, would say "Two weeks before the deadly Beirut blast, Lebanese security officials reportedly warned President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut’s port could destroy Beirut if it exploded. They did nothing." [emphasis mine]
He cites a Reuters article of August 10, 2020 that fails to back up the bolded claim. "Lebanese security officials warned the prime minister and president last month that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut’s port posed a security risk and could destroy the capital if it exploded, according to documents seen by Reuters and senior security sources." A central letter "sent to President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab on July 20" was not seen by Reuters, but described by an anonymous official, who says he helped Prosecutor General Ghassan Oweidat draft it. “I warned them that this could destroy Beirut if it exploded,” said the official.
"They did nothing," as explained:
A representative for Diab, whose government resigned on Monday following the blast, said the PM received the letter on July 20 and it was sent to the Supreme Defence Council for advice within 48 hours. “The current cabinet received the file 14 days prior to the explosion and acted on it in a matter of days. Previous administrations had over six years and did nothing.”...[President Michel] Aoun confirmed last week that he had been informed about the material. He told reporters he had directed the secretary general of the Supreme Defence Council, an umbrella group of security and military agencies chaired by the president, to “do what is necessary”. ... "I have no authority to deal with the port directly. There is a hierarchy and all those who knew should have known their duties to do the necessary,” Aoun said.
This sounds like they DID act, or claim to have acted. But that was already widely doubted, and Reuters had to warn "The correspondence could fuel further criticism and public fury that the explosion is just the latest, if not most dramatic, example of the government negligence and corruption that have already pushed Lebanon to economic collapse."
They Removed 80% of the AN?
While no publicized orders or documents reflect any removal, the balance of scientific blast analysis suggests around 80% of the Ammonium Nitrate was removed somehow, sometime before August 4.
Let's start with Wikipedia, 2020_Beirut_explosion#Yield, on estimates of the blast size. Several sources have estimated a larger TNT yield, with a seeming consensus whereby the reported 2,750 tons holds the upper end of a rather wide range of estimates. But for some reason, no estimates run higher than this, and they also agree on a low end, whereby as much as half the stuff had been removed.
- An early study by BRG in Germany (7 Aug) from seismic data produced a yield estimate between 0.5 and 1.1 kt of TNT.[54]
- "An independent estimate by the International Monitoring System of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization based on infrasonic data obtained an explosive yield equivalent to 0.5–1.1 kt of TNT [63]" Cited for that exact same range: 18 Aug. from the same BRG - "BGR/Seismologie/Erdbeben Aktuell". www.seismologie.bgr.de.
- University of Sheffield 22 Sept from "distance versus time of arrival data as new videos of the explosion became available" estimated between 0.5 and 1.12 kt of TNT, respectively.[57]
Two or three sources estimating 0.5 to 1.1 or 1.12 kt might seem solid, but that's quite a wide range to have such agreement on. Something like 0.5kt seems possible to all, but they all agree maybe it was twice that size, as reported. I estimate* this range equates to a low end of 1,280 tons of AN, and an upper end of 2,820 tons, just a bit higher than what everyone reported and assumed was there. So they agreed it COULD be the entire abandoned amount, or maybe half that.
* Crude calc based on 2.56t of AN = 1 ton TNT (per Temseh et al.) - and I assume twice the TNT yield = twice the AN, etc.. It might be more complicated, but all sources giving equivalencies come out with this basic ratio.
Another study seems a bit less constrained, inching lower, but not with much confidence: Diaz, Jorge (2021). "Explosion analysis from images: Trinity and Beirut". European Journal of Physics - this found for a yield of just 0.6 kt of TNT, with a margin of 0.3 kt..[59] = 769 to 2,307 tons of AN - at least 440 tons of it was removed, and maybe up to 70% of it was gone, leaving just 30%.
The Wikipedia article notes a September 2021, OCCRP investigation into ownership of the AN. "The report also mentions that only 20% of the nitrate originally stored in the warehouse was actually left when it exploded, raising questions about what happened with the rest." The reference includes a dead link, so I can't check the basis for that claim. That might be based on unique information, or on the first of these studies:
- Silos structural response to blast loading - ScienceDirect, 15 Sept. 2021. Wikipedia summary:"Temsah et al. 2021 estimated the magnitude of the explosion. The research was based on a structural engineering approach with numerical non-linear finite element modeling of the grain elevator facing Warehouse 12 where the explosion took place. The numerical study model was based on silos data (geometrical and material properties) and the use of the Conventional Weapons Effects Blast Loading (CONWEP), and the Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) methods to generate the blast load. The analysis results proved that an amount equivalent to 564 t of AN (or 220 t of TNT) was adequate to generate damages similar to those resulting from the explosion. This amount represents 20.5% of the original stored amount (2750 t)."
- Another study yet finds lower yet, and with much more confidence: Aouad et al. (4 October, 2021) found for a TNT equivalent mass of 0.2 +/- 0.08 kt of TNT = 308 to 717 tons of AN. Middle estimate: 513 tons remaining, 81% removed. Low end: 89% removed. High end: just 74% removed.
- "This result is consistent with Dewey 2021 that suggests that the Beirut explosion TNT equivalence is an increasing function of distance.[65]" January, 2021.
Finally, Reuters would report in July, 2021: "The FBI's Oct. 7, 2020 report, which was seen by Reuters this week, estimates around 552 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded that day, much less than the 2,754 tonnes that arrived on a Russian-leased cargo ship in 2013. The FBI report does not give any explanation as to how the discrepancy arose, or where the rest of the shipment may have gone." ... "The FBI report ... noted the warehouse was large enough to house the 2,754 tonne shipment, which was stored in one-tonne bags, but added "it is not logical that all of them were present at the time of the explosion"." FBI probe shows amount of chemicals in Beirut blast was a fraction of original shipment | Reuters
Aoud et al., Dewey, Temsah et al. and the FBI - 4 disparate sources agreeing on this range around 5-600 tons, with all others holding a wide range, that somehow had to include a similar low end. In retrospect, their low ends seem like the real estimates, suggesting as little as 30-50% of the AN remained, and 50-70% had been removed. But it was more like 80% removed - perhaps officially and for safety reason, or perhaps stolen, or some of each.
Alternatives and Corollaries
Reuters heard from a "senior Lebanese official" who "said there were no firm conclusions as to why the quantity that exploded was less than the original shipment. One theory was that part of it was stolen. A second theory was that only part of the shipment detonated, with the rest blown out to sea, the official said."
The latter seems fanciful. The stuff can hardly be pushed away by a blast wave without also being detonated by it. As the FBI report had to note, it's "not logical" to conclude the stuff was all there. The realistic options are probably down to stolen or - the option this official didn't mention - that it was removed for safety reasons.
Update 2/26: this idea is not necessarily that fanciful - Charles Wood suggests maybe "there was only a partial detonation and the remainder was ejected without exploding. AN in bulk without mixed fuel is notoriously hard to detonate, let alone completely detonate/"
and "From memory unconfined AN needs a minimum of ~ 1m diameter to even propagate a detonation wave. Stacks of AN with gaps would be very hard put to propagate a detonation across any feasible gap." https://twitter.com/Mare_Indicum/status/1629155789435981825
So it could be that the AN all remained and just didn't all detonate.
But so far, no one has published or leaked us any proof one way or the other. So ... whoever's doing the publishing and leaking may be covering for their side here. That's a bit of everyone, so it will take some considering.
Ken Roth, FA and many other supposedly informed sources keep telling us none of the AN was ever removed, and that's just why heads needed to roll, why we need to further punish someone or maybe everyone in Lebanon until they reform. Others take the unexplained removal of the 2,200 tons of AN as a sign of government malfeasance and the need for reform. https://twitter.com/SeismicSeiss/status/1614395794634977280 I guess that's how these things go.
It seems the power-per-ton is far greater than assumed by FA and others, and that if it the AN had all been there, for the estimated-around 1.1 kt equivalent blast - the catastrophe would have been five times worse than it was, which is fairly mind-boggling. One way or another - thank goodness it wasn't all there when the fire broke out.
Mapping the Remainder
Consider too how the FA modeling includes an estimate of blast center that seems pretty sound - middle of the building, right on bay 8's centered label (see below: "sphere"). It looks like a lazy "drop it in the middle," but the plume really appears that centered. But it was always strangely off-center in their imagined AN area. That could be explained by their area being wrong, because just 564 tons was left. They pointed to safety standards mandating blocks of 300-500 tons or less. It seems the stuff could all be in one block and barely exceed these standards.
I went with the higher 564 bags. With 2-high stacking, that would be 282 bags on the floor, so I picked ~282 of their dots (each bay has 8 rows of 30). It should be centered around the blast, with some stacked flush against a door that was worked on, to fit the welders photo. That would most likely fill bay 8 like this, but probably looser and maybe with spaced blocks. Door 3 is the best place to still see bags crammed to the edge (see below).
c.jpg)
Other arrangements are possible, but this is a best single guess for the actual AN area at the time of the fire. This would put the it about 40-45m from the tires and 50-55m from the fireworks, as estimated. All the bags previously photographed would be among those removed. And that kind of makes sense, doesn't it?
We don't know that this is the arrangement, but it's far closer to "FACT" than FA's illustration of state negligence that was short on facts but long on imagination. Still, I do appreciate the lovely images, as I use them here in a fair-use public-interest capacity, with constructive criticism.
Review, and Where Did the Removed AN Go?
This suggested removal could seriously cut into the negligence and inaction components of the disaster. Who has paused to think about that? The president and PM were warned July 20 the warehouse bomb could destroy Beirut, suggesting it was all still there at that time. Ken Roth insists "They did nothing," but they say they acted, no one has provided proof that they did not act, and two weeks later, it seems 80% of the stuff had been removed, by someone.
It's true just who, when, and where remain unclear. But all that mood music people cue up at the question is uncalled for.
Conversely, this raises the importance of other possible factors, like potential terrorist manipulation of the cargo. Any arrangement like the one I sketched above might be reasonably safe, so that it required some later, unapproved re-arrangement to become as dangerous as it finally did. That may not be an obvious scenario, but it's an important one that's gotten roughly zero consideration in the Western press, or in the documents leaked from judge Tarek Bitar's investigation. Part 2 will give it some detailed consideration.
Was the removal done for safety, or for nefarious purposes? or maybe both? Relocating the AN would obviously lessen the scale of explosive danger at the port, but ironically, it could sharply increase the likelihood of a blast. Consider that if there were plotters willing to unleash this bomb on Beirut, they might have enough investment in the city that they didn't want it irrecoverably flattened. In that case, the removal would weaken the bomb, making its use more plausible. It could be 100% of the AN was scheduled for removal, but the plotters moved when it got to 20% left, because that seemed like the right degree of wallop for their plans.
Who moved it? No one has spoken up about it, but we can consider it. To move entire one-ton bags would be quite a large and open operation, almost surely approved by the state. But scooped out and re-packaged, it could be smuggled sporadically, and taken for other uses.
At least twice since then, mid-sized stashes of AN were discovered by Lebanese authorities. They busts were made in Arsal and the Bekka valley, long time cross-border smuggling areas for Sunni extremists fighting the governments of both Syria and Lebanon, though not as active by 2020. Others assumed Hezbollah-types were trying to move their loot from Warehouse 12 into Syria, for some kind of terrorism.
Some alleged intrigue I can't vouch for: "Lebanese media reported on 23 September that the US ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, was part of a plot to frame Shia political parties with 20 tons of ammonium nitrate belonging to the brother of Ibrahim Sakr, one of the leaders of the right-wing Lebanese Forces political party." (The Cradle)
All that's shown in this and a later incident is in different, much smaller bags piled up. And, as the same Cradle article explains, "lab analysis later showed that the confiscated nitrate was chemically different and much more recent than that stored in Hangar 12 of the Port of Beirut." It was not re-packaged from this same supply. That's what people wondered about. Another Sakr-linked stash of 28 tons was found in October, but it too was different, found to be under the concentration considered dangerous. (The Cradle). Both were said to for agricultural use, and that might be. They could be weaponized, and maybe used to frame people or whatever, but not very well. Some people maybe just had too much imagination here.
So if most of the AN from Warehouse 12 was removed, where it went is an open question and a cause for concern. The lack of documents - or just of leaked ones - to explain this removal is part of the question. But the point remains it was not all there - a lot of lives were saved - you can hardly imagine how many there WOULD have been killed if this same situation occurred with all 2,750 tons.
This MIGHT, depending on details, show that the elected Lebanese government wasn't quite as inept as people say, not quite as in need of babysitting, reforming, or overthrowing. It's possible we could ease up on the regime-changey sadism. And quite likely there's a murky middle story, where the government did move to secure the port, but - for example - did it by some shady arrangement they never wanted to go public about, where most of the AN went "missing," that remains so embarrassing they still haven't spoken up about it.
All that remains to resolve, and it's quite interesting. But now it's on to part 2, considering the portion of the AN that remained and did explode, the other things that caught fire and exploded before, just how it all got that way, and why the chain reaction of fire could not be stopped.
> part 2: How the Bomb was Sealed Just as it was Lit (forthcoming)
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