Over two days on 17th and 18th September 2024, thousands of pagers, walkie-talkies and other communication devices carried by Hezbollah operatives exploded in Lebanon, killing around 37 persons and injuring thousands. The pagers on Tuesday received a message, overheated and then exploded, several of the incidents were caught in CCTV cameras. Then on Wednesday, two-way radios exploded in Beirut and other places in southern Lebanon exploded similarly.
It is largely believed that Israeli agency Mossad is behind the sophisticated attack targeting Hezbollah operatives, even though the Israeli govt has not commented on it. Earlier it was suspected that lithium batteries in the devices were maliciously overheated, causing them to explode. But later it was confirmed that tiny amounts of high-grade explosives were hidden in the batteries, in an elaborate operation.
Now, a report by New York Times claims that the incident was the result of a long-term operation run by Mossad, which included setting up a legitimate company in Hungary to supply communication devices.
The pagers that exploded on Tuesday are from Taiwanese company Gold Apollo. Photos of the company’s pager model AR-924 after the blasts appeared on social media. It was reported that Hezbollah had acquired large number of pagers for it used a few months ago. However, Gold Apollo denied making the pagers, saying that they were made by Hungarian company BAC Consulting under licence from them.
Gold Apollo’s founder and CEO Hsu Ching-kuang said that “there was nothing in those devices that we had manufactured or exported to them.” Hsu added that the pagers made by BAC are completely different from those made by Gold Apollo and that only the brand has been licenced to the company.
Now, the NYT report says that this BAC Consulting headquartered in Budapest is nothing but a front established by Mossad, citing three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They added that the Israeli spy agency also created at least two other shell companies, to mask the real identities of the people involved with making the pagers at BAC.
Hungarian records show that BAC Consulting was registered as a company in May 2022. As per its LinkedIn page, it offers services in the areas of international relations, telecommunication, environment, development and innovation, and monitoring systems for external aid intervention.
As per the report, BAC functioned as a legitimate company, they supplied a range normal pagers to several clients. According to Hungarian, it is a trading intermediary and has no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary. Zoltan Kovács, the spokesperson for the Hungarian prime minister’s office, posted on X that “the referenced devices have never been in Hungary.”
He added that Hungarian national security services are cooperating with all relevant international partner agencies and organizations in the probe.
BAC CEO Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono also said that the company didn’t make the pagers, and that she was just a link in the supply chain.
It is not clear where the pagers were made, but it is known that BAC somehow received the rigged pagers from Mossad and supplied them to Lebanon as per order.
They started supplying the pagers in the summer of 2022, but it accelerated after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah asked the operatives to not use mobile phones, and to use low-tech pagers for communication, with the belief that they can’t be hacked. Nasrallah’s order was fuelled by reports that Israel has developed technology to track any cellphone anywhere in the world, including remotely activating their cameras and microphones.
As per the intelligence officers, Israel had invested millions in developing the technology, and word spread among Hezbollah and its allies that no mobile phone communication was safe anymore, not even encrypted messaging apps.
Therefore, Hassan Nasrallah barred Hezbollah members from carrying cellphones from meetings of the organisations and made it mandatory for them to carry pages all the time to receive messages to receive instructions. Using low-tech one-way text message device was seen as a security measure against Mossad’s high-tech capabilities to hack mobile phones and computers, but Mossad had already started making pagers in Hungary, to supply to Hezbollah.
BAC Consulting managed to beg the order of pagers from Lebanon, it helps that there are not too many competitors for this device in the market, and started making the rigged devices. An explosive device needs five components, a container, a battery, a triggering device, a detonator and an explosive charge. A pager or most other electronic devices only has the first 3 components, so BAC needed to add just the explosive and the detonator.
As per reports, tiny amounts of military-grade explosives, most likely 3 to 5 grams PETN or RDX, were placed with the batteries in the pagers. They also likely added a mechanism to trigger the explosive remotely.
Hezbollah purchased around 5000 pagers, and they were supplied to the group in Lebanon around 5 months ago. Till now, the devices worked fine, and the hidden explosives were not detected.
On Tuesday, Mossad decided that it was time to execute the operation. Thousands of pagers in Lebanon and some in Syria beeped in the afternoon and received a message in Arabic that appeared to be sent by Hezbollah’s senior leadership. Immediately, the pagers overheated and then exploded. As per experts, the embedded software in the pagers was modified to trigger the bomb by a specific message.
Some operatives actually saved themselves by throwing away the devices after they felt the intense heat, but most didn’t and were injured by the force of the blasts. 12 persons died in the explosions, while over 2700 were injured, many of them seriously.
Japanese walkie-talkies made over 10 years ago
A day later, thousands of walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded, which killed 25 people and injured over 1000. The two-way radios were also rigged with explosives and were remotely detonated, as per reports.
It is being speculated that the radios was triggered just a day after the pager blasts because Hezbollah would have started to inspect all their communication devices, and would have detected the charges and detonators.
Images show that some of the walkie-talkies were made by Japanese radio equipment maker Icom. However, the company said that it stopped making the model used in the attack a decade ago. Icom said that it is investigating the matter.
Icom exported its IC-V82 two-way radio to regions including the Middle East until October 2014, after which it stopped making the model, the company said on Thursday. It also no longer makes the battery used in the device. The company further said that they can’t determine if the products are their own.
At present there is no theory on how the radios were rigged. As they were sold a decade ago, they must have been modified at a later stage. However, it is known that Hezbollah bought them just five months ago, around the same time they acquired the pagers. Therefore, they were most probably rigged before supply to Lebanon.
It is not known whether BAC supplied the radios or some company. As the devices went out of production a decade ago, it is unlikely there was an inventory of thousands of unsold devices lying somewhere. Therefore, there is high possibility that copies of the original device fitted with explosives and triggering mechanisms were made by Mossad to be sold to Hezbollah through BAC or some other front company.
The explosions of communication devices have caused a serious dent in the operations of Hezbollah, apart from the death and injuries, now the group is almost crippled as it can’t any electronic devices now. The group switched to low-tech devices to avoid being spied on by Mossad through modern devices, but now those very same devices have been turned into bombs.
The operation shows how deeply Mossad penetrated into Hezbollah. The spy agency managed to beg orders for sensitive communication devices and supplied the same. They also have access to two different communication systems in Lebanon, and used them to trigger the explosives hidden in pagers and radios remotely. Israel also likely to have a list of Hezbollah operatives who used the pagers and walkie-talkies.
