Washington accuses Hezbollah of storing ammonium nitrate in Europe
On Friday, the United States accused the Lebanese "Hezbollah" of establishing several "caches to store ammonium nitrate" in a number of European countries, which suggests that Washington established a link between the party and the Beirut port explosion caused by storing this material.
"Since 2012, Hezbollah has established caches to store ammonium nitrate throughout Europe, by transporting first aid bags that contain refrigerated pockets of this substance," said the US State Department counterterrorism coordinator, Nathan Sales.
"This type of storage cache has been found in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Greece, France, Italy and others," Sells said in a press conference held on Thursday, and Agence France-Presse obtained a copy of his minutes on Friday.
He also talked about transporting this substance through Belgium, Spain and Switzerland.
Sales confirmed that some of these stored materials had been "destroyed."
"We have reasons to believe that these activities are still going on," said the US Coordinator for Counterterrorism, adding that Washington suspects that storage caches of this type existed at least until 2018, "most likely in Greece, Italy and Spain."
"As we all witnessed in the Beirut port explosion, ammonium nitrate is a very dangerous substance," he said.
As for whether the United States is establishing a link between the explosion and Hezbollah, Sales did not give a direct answer, but he did not rule out this hypothesis.
He said, "Here is what we know: We know that Hizbullah has stored huge quantities of ammonium nitrate in Europe."
"Therefore, the United States calls for a comprehensive, open, transparent and in-depth investigation into the Beirut bombing, and we hope to see its results quickly," Sales said.
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