The ammonium nitrate that ended up in Warehouse No. 12 at the Port of Beirut in late 2013 may not have arrived there by accident, according to an investigation by Lebanese news outlet Asas Media that traces the shipment to the military supply networks used by the government of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its allies.

The report challenges the idea that the presence of the highly explosive material in Beirut was simply the result of a technical mishap involving an aging cargo ship that suffered engine problems in Lebanese waters. Instead, it points to a broader logistical connection between Beirut and Damascus, arguing that the material became part of a supply route that helped sustain the Syrian government's war effort.

The findings come against the backdrop of a critical turning point in Syria's war in 2013, when the balance of military power was shifting sharply and the Assad government was increasingly cut off from its main supply routes.

At the time, the regime had limited access to the Syrian coastal ports of Latakia and Tartus. The overland route from northern and northwestern Syria toward Damascus had become a battlefield marked by ambushes, clashes and sustained bombardment.

The main alternative ran through the countryside of Homs province and the areas bordering Lebanon along the Qalamoun mountain range. Those areas were then largely controlled by armed opposition factions, including the Nusra Front.

As fighting intensified around Qara, Deir Atiyah and Nabak in Qalamoun, as well as Talbiseh and Rastan in Homs, moving sensitive and highly explosive chemical materials along the Latakia-Homs-Damascus route became increasingly risky, according to the Asas account. The cargo could have been intercepted, attacked or seized by opposition forces.

The Masnaa corridor

The situation was markedly different along the southern and eastern approaches to Lebanon.

According to the report, Syrian government forces, operating alongside Hezbollah, had established control over the Masnaa-Bekaa-Damascus corridor, particularly following the strategic battle for Qusayr and as preparations advanced for military operations in Qalamoun.

That route offered a more secure logistical artery for moving military supplies toward Damascus while avoiding the contested central Syrian battlefields.

The report says sources familiar with the matter believe this helped drive a decision to use the Port of Beirut as a rear transit and storage point for material destined for Syria.

Instead of transporting highly explosive raw material along Syria's vulnerable coastline, the cargo could be unloaded in Beirut and then moved gradually by land toward Damascus through the Masnaa border crossing, which at the time was under the control of Syrian government forces and their allies.

The implications of that route are central to the Asas Media Minvestigation, which argues that the ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut was not simply an agricultural fertilizer or an ordinary dual-use civilian commodity. It says the material became an essential component in the production of barrel bombs, whose use by Syrian government forces intensified sharply in 2014 in areas held by the opposition, including Aleppo, Idlib, rural Damascus and Homs.

The outlet also links the shipment's transportation, financing and facilitation network to two Syrian businessmen, Moudallal Khoury and George Haswani, both of whom were placed under U.S. sanctions. According to Asas Media, they played financial and logistical intermediary roles in securing chemical materials for the Syrian government through ports and border crossings in the region.

The men behind the barrel bombs

The investigation further links the military development and use of what it calls "nitrate barrels" to two senior Syrian officers: Major General Suhail al-Hassan, known as "the Tiger," who at the time commanded special forces, and Major General Jamil al-Hassan, the former head of Syria's Air Force Intelligence Directorate.

According to Asas Media, the two men were directly involved in developing the low-cost explosive mixture used in barrel bombs. The report says the weapon was intended to compensate for severe shortages of conventional ammunition and heavy weapons while helping offset the Syrian air force's declining operational capacity.

The administrative and tactical structures associated with Air Force Intelligence and the special forces, the report says, oversaw the production of the crude weapons and the assembly of explosive materials arriving through alternative supply routes extending from Lebanon into Syria.

The account portrays the Beirut side of the story as the product of a convergence of circumstances: the increasingly complex battlefield in Qalamoun and Homs, institutional corruption and administrative and security failures in Lebanon, and what it describes as Hezbollah's political and security dominance over parts of the Lebanese state.

Together, those factors allowed the cargo aboard the Rhosus to remain stranded in Beirut before being unloaded and transferred to Warehouse No. 12 in 2014.

According to the investigation cited by Asas Media, about 500 tons of the original 2,750-ton shipment remained when the material exploded on Aug. 4, 2020. The report argues that the difference indicates that ammonium nitrate had been removed from the port over time and transported toward warehouses associated with Suhail and Jamil al-Hassan in Syria.

The material therefore remained in Beirut for years as a potential link between Syria's war economy and Lebanon's institutional failures, until the catastrophic explosion that destroyed large parts of the port and surrounding areas on Aug. 4, 2020.

The Rhosus

The story began in September 2013, when the Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged cargo ship owned by Russian businessman Igor Grechushkin, left the Georgian port of Batumi carrying the ammonium nitrate.

Its declared destination was Mozambique.

The vessel, however, was detained after reaching Beirut following mechanical problems and legal proceedings over unpaid fees and alleged violations. Lebanese judge Jad Maalouf ordered the vessel detained and subsequently authorized the unloading of its cargo after the ship was deemed unable to settle its obligations.

The crew, most of whom were Ukrainian, was left aboard the ship for months without pay, according to the account. The Rhosus eventually sank after its cargo had been removed and placed in Warehouse No. 12.

The circumstances surrounding the shipment have long been the subject of competing theories and investigations. Human Rights Watch has separately documented how official failures, corruption and mismanagement at the port allowed the ammonium nitrate to remain improperly stored there for nearly six years.

Earlier investigations into the shipment also identified links between Savaro, the company that purchased the ammonium nitrate, and businessmen associated with the Assad government. Asas Meida previously reported that companies connected to George Haswani and Imad Khoury shared a London address with Savaro, while Moudallal Khoury had been sanctioned by the United States in connection with his support for the Syrian government.

The latest Asas account goes further, presenting the Beirut shipment not as an isolated port disaster but as one element of a wider logistical system connecting Lebanon to the Syrian government's military infrastructure.

If that account is borne out by further evidence, the ammonium nitrate stored in Warehouse No. 12 would represent more than a story of negligence surrounding a dangerous cargo. It would point to the way Syria's war, Lebanon's political and security landscape and regional supply networks intersected around the Port of Beirut.

The central question is therefore not only how the ammonium nitrate came to explode in Beirut, but why such a large quantity of the material came to Lebanon in the first place — and whether part of the shipment was intended from the outset to support the Syrian government's war effort.

Those questions remain critical to understanding the chain of events that began with the Rhosus in 2013 and ended, nearly seven years later, with one of the world's largest non-nuclear explosions.