In what seems a classy attack from a distanceOn Tuesday, the pagers of a whole lot of Hezbollah members exploded almost concurrently in Lebanon and Syria. at the least nine people killed — including an 8-year-old girl — and hundreds more were injured.
The Iran-backed militant group blamed Israel for the deadly blasts, which targeted a rare number of individuals and showed signs of a long-planned operation. How the attack was carried out is essentially unclear, and investigators didn’t immediately say how the pagers were detonated. The Israeli military has not commented.
Here’s what we all know to this point.
Why were pagers utilized in the attack?
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had previously warned members of the group not to hold mobile phones because Israel could use them to trace the group’s movements. For this reason, the organization uses pagers to speak.
A Hezbollah official told The Associated Press that the explosive devices that exploded were a brand new brand that the group had not used before. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, didn’t name the brand or the supplier.
Nicholas Reese, an associate professor on the Center for Global Affairs at New York University’s School of Professional Studies, explains that smartphones pose a better risk of communications being intercepted than the simpler technology of pagers.
Such an attack would also force Hezbollah to alter its communications strategies, said Reese, a former intelligence officer. He added that survivors of Tuesday’s explosions would likely “throw away not only their pagers, but their phones and leave behind their tablets or other electronic devices.”
How could sabotage cause these pagers to blow up?
Although investigators have released little to this point, several theories emerged Tuesday about how the attack can have been carried out. Several experts who spoke to The Associated Press suggest the explosions were almost certainly the results of a supply chain disruption.
It is feasible that very small explosive devices were built into the pagers before they were delivered to Hezbollah, which were then detonated all concurrently by handheld remote control, possibly via a radio signal.
At the time of the attack, “the battery was probably half an explosive charge and half a real battery,” said Carlos Perez, director of security intelligence at TrustedSec.
A former British Army bomb disposal officer explained that an explosive device consists of 5 foremost components: a container, a battery, a trigger device, a detonator and an explosive charge.
“A pager already has three of them,” explained the previous police officer, who wished to stay anonymous because he now works as a consultant for clients within the Middle East. “You just need to add the detonator and the charge.”
After surveillance camera footage appeared on social media on Tuesday purporting to indicate one in all the pagers attached to a person’s hip exploding in a Lebanese market, two munitions experts also said the explosion appeared to have been attributable to a tiny explosive device.
“If you look at the video, the size of the detonation is comparable to that of a mere electrical detonator or a detonation containing an extremely small, highly explosive charge,” said Sean Moorhouse, a former British army officer and explosive ordnance disposal expert.
This suggests the involvement of a state actor, Moorhouse said, adding that the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad was essentially the most obvious suspect with the means to perform such an attack.
NR Jenzen-Jones, a military weapons expert and director of Australia’s Armament Research Services, agreed that the size and class of the attack “almost certainly points to a state actor” and that Israel has been accused of conducting such operations prior to now. Last yr, AP reported that Iran had accused Israel of attempting to Sabotage of the ballistic missile program through faulty foreign parts that would explodeto break or destroy the weapons before they could possibly be used.
How long did this operation take?
Planning an attack of this magnitude would take a protracted time. The exact details are still unknown, but experts who spoke to AP estimated the time span can be between a number of months and two years.
The sophistication of the attack suggests that whoever is behind it has been gathering intelligence for a very long time, Reese explained. An attack of this caliber requires constructing the relationships mandatory to achieve physical access to the pagers before they’re sold; developing the technology that may be embedded within the devices; and obtaining sources who can confirm that victims were carrying the pagers.
And it’s likely that the compromised pagers appeared normal to their users a while before the attack. Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based veteran and senior political risk analyst with over 37 years of experience within the region, said he has spoken with Hezbollah members and survivors of Tuesday’s pager attack. He said the pagers were obtained greater than six months ago.
“The pagers worked perfectly for six months,” said Magnier. The explosion was apparently triggered by an error message that was sent to all devices.
Based on his conversations with Hezbollah members, Magnier also said many pagers didn’t go off, allowing the group to look at them. They concluded that between three and five grams of a highly explosive material was hidden or embedded within the circuits, he said.
What else could have happened?
Another possibility is that malware has been introduced into the pager’s operating system, which in some unspecified time in the future causes the device’s batteries to overload and thus cause a hearth.
According to a Hezbollah official and Lebanese security official, the pagers first heated up after which exploded within the pockets or hands of the wearers on Tuesday afternoon.
These pagers are powered by lithium-ion batteries, the Hezbollah official said, claiming the devices exploded in consequence of an attack by an Israeli “security operation,” without providing further details.
When overheated, lithium-ion batteries can smoke, melt, and even catch fire. Rechargeable lithium batteries are utilized in consumer products from cell phones and laptops to electric cars. Lithium battery fires can reach temperatures of as much as 590 °C (1,100 °F).
Still, Moorhouse and others identified that Tuesday’s images and video footage were more paying homage to the detonation of a small explosive charge fairly than an overheated battery.
“A lithium-ion battery fire is one thing, but I’ve never seen an explosion like this. It looks like a small explosive charge,” said Alex Plitsas, a weapons expert on the Atlantic Council.
Jenzen-Jones is amongst those pointing to the likelihood of a supply chain attack, adding that “an operation on such a large scale also raises questions about targeting” – highlighting the variety of casualties and the big impact reported to this point.
“How can the person who detonates the explosive device be sure that, for example, the target person’s child will not play with the pager if it works?” he asked.
