On Tuesday, an exploding pager attack in Lebanon caused 11 deaths and left nearly 4,000 people wounded, including hundreds in critical condition. The attack targeted areas known to be strongholds of Hezbollah militiamen. Within one hour, thousands of pagers exploded after receiving a beep. The explosions caused severe injuries to the person carrying the devices and others but didn’t damage buildings or start fires.
Initially, there was speculation that the battery might be to blame for the explosions, considering it’s the only component with enough stored energy to cause such damage. However, this raised questions about what kind of attack could remotely cause batteries to explode and how the small pager batteries could lead to such powerful explosions.
Security sources provided more details about the attack a few hours after the incident. They revealed that it involved electronic communication devices. It’s already considered one of the deadliest “cyber attacks” in history.
The Mossad Detonated Thousands of Pagers Simultaneously
Both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government were quick to blame Israel for the explosions. According to CNN, the explosions were the result of a joint operation between the Mossad and the Israeli army. Additionally, Axios reports that this operation was approved earlier this week at a meeting headed by Prime Minister Netanyahu and attended by senior military officials.
The Israeli intelligence service managed to compromise Hezbollah’s communications system and implanted a series of explosives in the pagers they were using. Hezbollah’s leaders chose to use pagers instead of phones because they feared that Israel could use the geolocation of the phones to carry out targeted bombings. “Mobile phones are deadly Israeli agents,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed in March.
Specifically, The New York Times reports that Israel intercepted a batch of pagers destined for Hezbollah and inserted a switch to remotely detonate them.
Overall, a batch of 5,000 Taiwanese Gold Apollo pagers were reportedly affected. Lebanese sources told Reuters that the pagers had been brought into Lebanon at the beginning of the year.
Gold Apollo Is the Brand of the Pagers, Not the Manufacturer
Images of the affected Gold Apollo pagers show that they were of a specific model: AP924.
According to the tech specs on the brand’s website, the ruggedized pager has a rechargeable lithium battery that offers a battery life of up to 85 days and can receive text messages of up to 100 characters.
Gold Apollo has quickly issued a statement.
While the company confirmed that it uses its brand trademark, CEO Hsu Ching-Kuang explained that the AP924 model is “produced and sold by BAC. Our company only provides brand trademark authorization and is not involved in the design or manufacturing of this product.”
According to Gold Apollo, the manufacturer of the affected pagers is BAC CONSULTING LTD. based in Budapest, Hungary.
A Lebanese security source told Reuters that “the Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through means.”
PETN, One of the World’s Most Sensitive Explosives
According to Sky News Arabia, the Mossad allegedly planted up to three grams of pentaerythritol tetranitrate in the pagers, also known as PETN or penthrite, several months in advance.
PETN is one of the most powerful and sensitive explosives in existence, similar to nitroglycerin. It’s usually used as a booster in small-scale explosions. In this case, the penthrite, combined with the overheating of the pager’s battery, could’ve caused a much larger explosion.
PETN was first patented in 1894 and manufactured in 1912 by the German Army for use in World War I. Since then, the explosive has been consistently used in military applications and terrorist attacks.
Image | Gold Apollo
View 0 comments