Less than a week after the massive blast followed by a huge fire Lebanese Prime Minister Hasan Diab resigned on Monday evening taking full responsibility for the incident in his speech before announcing his resignation.
More than 160 people died in the country’s capital, Beirut, which was badly destroyed in the explosion in the stash of potentially explosive chemical, ammonium nitrate on August 4. Diab blamed the elite of the country for the present state of affairs and rampant corruption. Diab took over as the Prime Minister last December after the previous government fell after two months long protest and unrest in the country.
Lebanon is passing through its worst economic crisis and Diab is the third Prime Minister to quit within a year. His government got support of technocrats, several political parties and Iranian backed Hezbollah.
Ammonium nitrate is a key component in IED used by various terror groups across the world.
Lebanon has a history of political turmoil and had witnessed a 15 years long civil war between 1975 and 1990 which led to the killing of about one lakh people.
As per the per the constitution the country has a Maronite Christian as President, Sunni Muslim as PM and Shia Muslim as the Speaker. Lebanon has around 43 per cent Christians and 57 per cent Muslims divided almost equally between Sunnis and Shias.
—Newsweb Correspondent
