Thousands of Hezbollah pagers exploded on Tuesday, killing some and wounding others. How is this possible?
“Exploding pagers kill Hezbollah members and others, leave thousands wounded, officials say; militant group blames Israel,” the Associated Press reported the astonishing news on September 17.
“Hundreds of handheld pagers exploded near-simultaneously in parts of Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people — including members of the militant group Hezbollah and two children — and wounding several thousand, according to Lebanon’s public health minister,” the AP began in a dry tone of wonderment. “Hezbollah and the Lebanese government blamed Israel for what appeared to be a sophisticated, remote attack.”
Though the Israeli government has declined to comment thus far, “A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Israel had briefed the U.S. on the operation — in which small amounts of an explosive inside the pagers were detonated — after it was concluded,” the AP revealed. “The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information publicly.”
Videos of the explosions and photos of gruesome injuries spread on social media like wildfire. The attack appears to have been extremely sophisticated and planned well in advance.
“The pagers that blew up had apparently been acquired by Hezbollah after the group’s leader ordered members in February to stop using cell phones, warning they could be tracked by Israeli intelligence,” the AP revealed. “A Hezbollah official told the AP that the pagers were a new brand, but declined to say how long they had been in use.”
“At about 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, pagers started heating up and then exploding in the pockets and hands of those carrying them — particularly in a southern Beirut suburb and the Beqaa region of eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a strong presence, and in Damascus, where several Hezbollah members were wounded, Lebanese security officials and a Hezbollah official said,” the AP continued. “The Hezbollah official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media.”
News media outlets are in a frenzy to discover how this feat was achieved.
“Hezbollah exploding pager trail runs from Taiwan to Hungary,” reported Reuters on September 17. “A Taiwanese pager maker denied on Wednesday that it had produced devices that wounded thousands of Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon when they exploded, an audacious attack that raised the prospect of a full-scale war between the Iran-backed group and arch-foe Israel.”
“Gold Apollo said the devices were made under license by a company called BAC, based in Hungary’s capital Budapest,” Reuters reported. “Israel’s spy agency Mossad, which has a long history of pulling off sophisticated attacks on foreign soil, planted explosives inside pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.”
“The death toll rose to 12, including two children, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said on Wednesday,” the outlet added. “The attack wounded nearly 3,000 people, including many of the group’s fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut. Iran-backed Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel, whose military declined to comment on the blasts.”
“Paging Hezbollah,” quipped Mark Toth and Johnathan Sweet for the New York Post on September 17, speculating as to “How Israel will follow up exploding beepers.”
“Israel just turned the screw tighter in Lebanon, as the IDF sent an urgent message to Hezbollah,” began Toth and Sweet. “In what initially appeared to be a cyber-triggered attack, dozens of Hezbollah operatives were wounded Tuesday afternoon when their encrypted pagers exploded at 3:30 p.m. across Beirut.”
Right on cue, there have been subsequent reports of a second wave of such tech-based attacks.
“The day after thousands of Hezbollah terror suspects were injured, and reportedly a dozen people killed, by their pagers almost simultaneously exploding,” reported John Hayward for Breitbart on September 18.
“Lebanese and Iranian media reported a second wave of radio device detonations. The second wave appears to involve two-way radio devices, such as walkie-talkies.”
“Exploding pagers join a long history of killer communications devices,” reported Mehul Srivastava for the Financial Times. “Israel, blamed by Hizbollah for Tuesday’s attack, has long used telephones and their successors to track and kill enemies.”
“As far back as 1972, as part of their revenge on the Palestine Liberation Organization for the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, Mossad operatives swapped out the marble base of the phone used by Mahmoud Hamshari, the PLO’s representative in Paris, in his French apartment,” wrote Srivastava. “On December 8, when he answered the phone, a nearby Israeli team remotely detonated the explosives packed inside the replica base. Hamshari lost a leg and later died.”
“In 1996, Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, managed to trick Yahya Ayyash, a skilled Hamas bombmaker responsible for the killing of dozens of Israelis, into accepting a call from his father on a Motorola Alpha cell phone brought into Gaza by a Palestinian collaborator,” he went on. “Hidden inside the phone was about 50g of explosives — enough to kill anybody holding the phone to their ear. Both instances are now part of Israeli spy legend.”
Now, it appears another episode will take its place in spy lore.
And terrorists around the world have a terrible new threat to fear.
(contributing writer, Brooke Bell)