5 ms·

It doesn't pay off if it was stolen because it's a chemical easily converted into more bombs.

by ineedasername 5y ago

tpmx 5y ago
I don't think it's particularly hard to acquire fertilizer in this region, before or after the blast.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Probably not. Hypothetically, it would be incredibly easy to acquire, at no cost, if it was fairly well know that a few million pounds of it was available for minimal effort behind a poorly guarded broken warehouse door. Why, I'd speculate that as much as 80% might be stolen before chance, incompetence, and bad luck came together to blowup the remaining 20%. Hypothetically. :) That aside, this wasn't fertilizer. It was high purity explosives grade nitrate that had been enroute to a place intending to use it in explosive applications, not farming. That might be easier to obtain in Lebanon than other countries but it still doesn't fly completely under the radar. And why bother when there's a freighter worth of free supply? Fertilizer would be easy to get a hold of, but take more more money, effort and larger quantities for the same bang, if that was the reason for buying it. Plenty of the Beirut supply might have been stolen to adulterate down to fertilizer concentrations, but a non-zero number of people were interested in its military applications, and it's existence wasn't a secret. And millions of pounds were stolen so it's fairly plausible some of it was stolen for use in explosives. That was actually one of the proposed disposal mechanisms by those who tried to get the government to act on the issue: Give it to the Lebanese army.
kjaftaedi 5y ago
It wasn't stolen by burglars, it's stolen in the sense that someone pockets some money for letting the supply leave the holding facility. They technically don't own it, but the owners were never going to pay the fine to get their property back. It's the inevitable course of events in these situations.

It doesn't pay off if it was stolen because it's a chemical easily converted into more bombs.

tpmx 5y ago

I don't think it's particularly hard to acquire fertilizer in this region, before or after the blast.

ineedasername 5y ago
Probably not. Hypothetically, it would be incredibly easy to acquire, at no cost, if it was fairly well know that a few million pounds of it was available for minimal effort behind a poorly guarded broken warehouse door. Why, I'd speculate that as much as 80% might be stolen before chance, incompetence, and bad luck came together to blowup the remaining 20%. Hypothetically. :) That aside, this wasn't fertilizer. It was high purity explosives grade nitrate that had been enroute to a place intending to use it in explosive applications, not farming. That might be easier to obtain in Lebanon than other countries but it still doesn't fly completely under the radar. And why bother when there's a freighter worth of free supply? Fertilizer would be easy to get a hold of, but take more more money, effort and larger quantities for the same bang, if that was the reason for buying it. Plenty of the Beirut supply might have been stolen to adulterate down to fertilizer concentrations, but a non-zero number of people were interested in its military applications, and it's existence wasn't a secret. And millions of pounds were stolen so it's fairly plausible some of it was stolen for use in explosives. That was actually one of the proposed disposal mechanisms by those who tried to get the government to act on the issue: Give it to the Lebanese army.

kjaftaedi 5y ago

It wasn't stolen by burglars, it's stolen in the sense that someone pockets some money for letting the supply leave the holding facility. They technically don't own it, but the owners were never going to pay the fine to get their property back. It's the inevitable course of events in these situations.