Exploding pagers
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More than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, security sources told Reuters.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the "biggest security breach" the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.
Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October, the worst such escalation in years.
The Israeli military declined to comment on Reuters enquiries about the detonations.
Iran's Mehr news agency said the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured by one of the blasts. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.
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Wow.
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Eight dead. Thousands wounded, hundreds of them seriously.
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/17/hezbollah-pager-explosions-israel-tensions
I don't know the technology...how the hell did they pull this off?
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Looking like the pagers might have been intercepted and explosives placed in them. A "supply chain interdiction attack".
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Reports of walkie-talkies exploding today in Lebanon.
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I wonder how you pack enough explosives into enough pagers to kill some individuals and injure more than a thousand?
Big Al
Money seems to buy the most happiness when you give it away.
Why does everything have to be so complicated, all in the name of convenience. -ShiroKuro
A lifetime of experience will change a person. If it doesn't, then you're already dead inside. -MarkJ
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Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordnance disposal expert, said videos of the blasts suggested a small explosive charge — as small as a pencil eraser — had been placed into the devices. They would have had to have been rigged prior to delivery, very likely by Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, he said.
Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based senior political risk analyst, said he spoke with Hezbollah members who had examined pagers that failed to explode. What triggered the blasts, he said, appeared to be an error message sent to all the devices that caused them to vibrate, forcing the user to click on the buttons to stop the vibration. The combination detonated a small amount of explosives hidden inside and ensured that the user was present when the blast went off, he said.
The TOI article said it was 3 grams of explosive. I saw the explosive named elsewhere but can't find it now.
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Lebanon’s official news agency also reported that solar energy systems exploded in homes in several areas of Beirut and in southern Lebanon, wounding at least one girl.
Citing conversations with Hezbollah contacts, Magnier said the group is currently investigating what type of explosives were used in the device, suspecting RDX or PETN, highly explosive materials that can cause significant damage with as little as 3-5 grams.
https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israel-hezbollah-pager-explosion-e9493409a0648b846fdcadffdb02d71e
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Amazingly smart (and very scary) operation. Very little "collateral damage." Almost all of the "victims" are senior commanders and members of Hezbollah. They didn't have to kill lots of people to achieve their aims. Injury is sufficient. They have disrupted the organization and made everyone suspicious of necessary communication devices ... and of each other.
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That was the basis of a story I read/heard yesterday, but there were hints/rumors that Mossad found out that someone inside Hezbollah had gotten suspicious enough to report fears of pager tampering to higher ups within the organization, and that that had triggered (so to speak) Israeli use of the preprepared tool. This may have been a case of use it or lose it.
It's possible that Israel will NOW see that one of their battlefield advantages is disappearing unless they go into southern Lebanon immediately, while communications are disrupted. If they do, we'll have the usual problem of determining causality. Did they blow the pagers in order to attack, or did they attack only because the pagers had to be blown for other reasons.
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Oh, geez, the NYT is reporting that the Hungarian "company" that produced the pagers was actually an Israeli-formed shell corporation that took on regular clients, as well as supplying Iranian-backed groups like Hezbollah. Perfect cover. Israeli didn't "tamper" with the pagers. Israel manufactured them! This is John le Carré level stuff.
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I’m reading that walkie-talkies and fingerprint scanners have been exploding as well.
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@Steve-Miller said in Exploding pagers:
I’m reading that walkie-talkies and fingerprint scanners have been exploding as well.
And maybe home solar energy systems.
The solar panel explosions were not linked to the suspected Mossad-orchestrated blasts in Beirut. There were no confirmation whether they caught fire from one of the devices and exploded or went off on their own. "A girl from the town of Al-Marwaniyah was injured as a result of the explosion of the solar energy system in her family's home, the NNA report from Lebabon's Zahrani read.
