Lebanese MP Says Assad Associates Imported Chemicals Behind Beirut Port Blast

A massive explosion at the Beirut Port on August 4 killed more than 200 people and laid waste to large swathes of the Lebanese capital. AFP file photo
A massive explosion at the Beirut Port on August 4 killed more than 200 people and laid waste to large swathes of the Lebanese capital. AFP file photo
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Lebanese MP Says Assad Associates Imported Chemicals Behind Beirut Port Blast

A massive explosion at the Beirut Port on August 4 killed more than 200 people and laid waste to large swathes of the Lebanese capital. AFP file photo
A massive explosion at the Beirut Port on August 4 killed more than 200 people and laid waste to large swathes of the Lebanese capital. AFP file photo

Syrians close to President Bashar al-Assad have brought the dangerous chemicals that exploded on August 4 at the Beirut Port, member of the Strong Republic parliamentary bloc MP Maged Eddy Abillama said Sunday.

The MP said he has informed the public prosecutor about the information he has to support the ongoing investigation into the devastating explosion.

Abillama said he will reveal more information on Tuesday.

“I will visit, with the head of the Change Movement, lawyer Elie Mahfoud, the office of the public prosecutor to file a complaint over the crime of the Beirut Port blast,” he said in a television interview.

“The Syrian regime benefited from its proxies in Lebanon to place the ammonium nitrate at the Port of Beirut. The judiciary should assume its responsibilities,” he said.

The deputy said every party linked to the explosion should be punished.

“We should gather all information that reveals what happened and hold those who destroyed Beirut accountable,” Abillama added.

More than five months after the blast, little light has been shed on the circumstances that led to Lebanon's worst peacetime disaster, which is widely blamed on decades of negligence and corruption by the country's ruling elite.

The slow pace of the investigation has sparked outrage at home and fueled distrust among international donors, whose support is much needed if Lebanon is to stand a chance of surviving its deepest economic crisis in decades.



Trump’s Middle East Envoy Says Progress Being Made on Israeli Hostages in Gaza

Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump’s Middle East Envoy Says Progress Being Made on Israeli Hostages in Gaza

Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, January 7, 2025. (Reuters)

President-elect Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday he hopes to have good things to report about Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza by the time Trump is sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

Witkoff, at a press conference held by Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, said: "I'm really hopeful that by the inaugural we'll have some good things to announce on behalf of the President."

Republican Trump said of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas in the Oct. 7 2024 attack on Israel: "If the hostages are not back by the time I'm in office, all hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone."