(VINnews) While it is still unclear whether the ammonium nitrate which exploded in Beirut two weeks ago, killing 180 and wounding thousands, belonged to Hezbollah, a report by German newspaper Die Welt claimed Wednesday that Iran had supplied Hezbollah with hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate in 2013. This was around the same time that Lebanon confiscated some 2,750 tons of the explosive substance which later led to the explosion in the port.
Hezbollah has categorically denied its connection to the explosion, with leader Hassan Nasrallah stating that the group had “no weapons, no missiles, or bombs or rifles or even a bullet or ammonium nitrate” at the port.
German daily Die Welt cited Western security services as confirming that Iran’s extra-territorial Quds Force supplied Hezbollah with some 670 tons of ammonium nitrate in mid- and late 2013, charging some $72,000 for it. Hezbollah allegedly wished to use the substance in tunnels it was digging at the time towards Israel.
However the newspaper acknowledged that there was no evidence that Hezbollah had been responsible for bringing this particular batch of ammonium nitrate to the port, although it may have delayed the substance once it arrived in the port so that it could use it later. Hezbollah had previous connections to ammonium nitrate, including incidents in Germany and the UK, both widely reported at the time, in which its agents were reportedly found with substantial quantities of the material.
In London in 2015, following a Mossad tip, British intelligence reportedly found four Hezbollah operatives with 3 tons of ammonium nitrate held in flour sacks. A similar process led to the discovery in Germany of Hezbollah operatives with enough ammonium nitrate “to blow up a city.”
