Was the Beirut Explosion a ‘Bombing’ or an ‘Attack’? Or Just an Accident?

At a press conference Tuesday night, President Trump referred to an explosion in Beirut as a “terrible attack.” Trump said his basis for this belief was that he’d “met with some of our great generals” who “just seem to feel that it was.” Viral social media posts contained similar rhetoric, referring to the “Beirut bombing” and some suggesting the explosion was a nuclear blast. There is currently no information to back up these claims.

The source of the explosion is already known: Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab said the explosion came from a warehouse containing 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive material typically used as a fertilizer, and general security chief Abbas Ibrahim confirmed that the material had been confiscated and stored in the warehouse some years earlier.