Exploding pagers

A decision led Islamists to misery

The waves of attacks killed at least 37 people.

(Bild: AP ( via APA) Austria Presse Agentur)

Beep, beep, boom! How is it possible to explode thousands of pagers at the same time? And to plunge a terrorist organization into absolute chaos within a few seconds? Israel has apparently succeeded in building a Trojan horse of front companies over the years.

Israel is believed to be behind the coordinated wave of attacks. This was reported by the New York Times, citing twelve former and current secret service employees of the country. 

The plan has been in the works for years, and in Israeli security circles the radio receivers were only referred to as "buttons". Now the decision has been made to press them. Apparently also for reasons of time. According to media reports, some Hezbollah members were on the trail of the elaborate plan. The Shiite militia seems to have fallen for a Trojan horse.

Technological regression as a gateway
Israel's hackers are absolutely feared by the terrorist group. So much so that the terrorists have sought refuge in analog technologies. A few years ago, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, of all people, began to focus on ancient radio receivers - for security reasons. However, the flight into the past proved to be fatal.

"You ask me where the agent is," Nasrallah told his followers in a publicly televised speech in February. "I tell you that the phone in your hands, in the hands of your wives and in the hands of your children is the agent." He appealed: "Bury it!"

The Mossad - Israel's foreign intelligence service - saw this as a unique opportunity. Even before Nasrallah decided to expand the use of pagers, Israel had initiated a plan to set up a front company to pose as an international pager manufacturer. Among others, this was the much-cited BAC Consulting, founded in 2022.

Devices were not manufactured in Hungary
It now seems clear that the company had no links to Hungary or Austria, and was in fact run by the state of Israel. In order to appear credible, the bogus company also accepted normal customers, manufactured functioning pagers and set up at least two other letterbox companies to conceal identities.

BAC (Mossad) actually only had one customer: Gold Apollo from Taiwan. The same company that received a large order for pagers from the terrorist group Hezbollah. These radio receivers were manufactured separately and contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, three intelligence officers explained.

The pagers were delivered to Lebanon in small numbers in the summer of 2022, but production was quickly ramped up after Nasrallah gradually banned cell phones. The majority of the devices that have now exploded arrived this summer. 

Hungary denies links
The completely baffled boss of the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, Hsu Ching-Kuang, also saw himself as a victim. He told Der Spiegel that a businesswoman had contacted him three years ago to initiate the momentous deal. The financial transfers of his business partners had seemed "strange" to him, partly because the transfers had been processed via a bank in the Middle East. Now he wants to sue BAC Consulting.

The Hungarian government denied any connection to BAC. Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács explained that the company was merely an intermediary. It had no production or logistics facilities in Hungary. "The devices were never in Hungary," he emphasized. According to the New York Times, the pagers that exploded on Tuesday were manufactured entirely by Israeli intelligence officers. 

And the walkie-talkies?
But Israel's plan apparently went much deeper. Because on Wednesday, the Islamists' emergency communications also blew up. These were apparently walkie-talkies made by the Japanese company Icom. However, according to the Japanese manufacturer, the IC-V82 model, which apparently exploded hundreds of times, has not been produced for ten years. According to Icom, an illegal copy cannot be ruled out.

A man in Beirut took the battery out of his radio to be on the safe side.

(Bild: AFP/ANWAR AMRO)

The explosions in Lebanon killed 37 people and injured almost 3000 within a few hours. In addition to terrorists, children and other civilians who were in the vicinity of a device were also among the victims. In an eagerly awaited speech on Thursday afternoon, Hezbollah leader Nasrallah spoke of a declaration of war: Israel had "crossed all red lines".