Yesterday morning the Telegraph released a report that Hezbollah was stockpiling tons of weapons at the airport in Beirut, Lebanon. They were tipped off by a whistleblower at the airport.
Here’s what the report said:
“Hezbollah is storing huge quantities of Iranian weapons, missiles, and explosives in Beirut’s main civilian airport, according to airport whistleblowers.
The cache allegedly includes Iranian-made Falaq unguided artillery rockets, Fateh-110 short-range missiles, road-mobile ballistic missiles and MI600 missiles with ranges of over 150 to 200 miles.
Also at the airport is the ATI14 Kornet, laser guided anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), huge quantities of Burkan short-range ballistic missile and explosive RDX, a toxic white powder also known as cyclonite or hexagon.
The disclosures will raise fears that the Rafic Hariri airport, just four miles from the city centre, could become a major military target. Fateh-110 short-range missiles are claimed to be among the various weaponry stored in the airport.
One airport worker, speaking to The Telegraph on condition of anonymity, said: “This is extremely serious, mysterious large boxes arriving on direct flights from Iran are a sign that things got worse. “When they started to come through the airport, my friends and I were scared because we knew that there was something strange going on.”
Because of this report, journalists were invited for a tour of the airport in Beirut by the country’s Hezbollah-affiliated transport minister to disprove these allegations.
But according to the Times of Israel, everything was going well until journalists were stopped from going into the cargo area:
Reporters banned from entering cargo area in tour of Beirut airport aimed at disproving claims of weapons stockpiling
A tour of Beirut airport for journalists and ambassadors that Lebanon’s Hezbollah-affiliated transport minister said would prove that the terror group is not storing weapons on site is interrupted as reporters and cameramen are prevented from entering a cargo-handling area in the airport.
The tour had been arranged by Beirut’s Transport Ministry to disprove allegations published yesterday by The Telegraph that the Shiite terror group has stockpiled weapons coming from Iran at the airport, including ballistic missiles, unguided artillery rockets, and laser-guided anti-tank guided missiles, as well as a highly explosive and toxic white powder known as RDX.
In response to the allegations, Lebanon’s Hezbollah-affiliated Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamieh held a press conference at the airport yesterday, dismissing the “ridiculous” allegations. Hamieh invited journalists and ambassadors to take a tour of the airport’s facilities this morning, to prove that “there is nothing to hide,” Lebanese media quoted the minister as saying.
During today’s tour, dozens of journalists and ambassadors are accompanied through parts of the airport, but only the diplomats are allowed to enter one of the cargo-handling buildings due to “organizational issues,” while journalists are left to wait outside in the heat, according to the Saudi Al-Hadath news outlet.
Yeah we know why they were banned from entering.
I have a feeling that there’s a big operation to move these weapons out of the airport now that it’s been exposed. Otherwise it would make a very nice target for an Israeli strike.