Israelʼs foreign intelligence service — Mossad — planted explosives in 5 000 pagers imported by the Lebanese group Hezbollah months before the bombings.
This was reported to Reuters by a high-ranking source in the Lebanese Security Service and another source.
Hezbollah ordered 5 000 pagers from the Taiwanese company “Gold Apollo”. The pagers were imported into Lebanon earlier this year.
The “Gold Apollo” founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers that exploded were made by a company in Europe that had the right to use the firmʼs brand. The company named BAC in a statement, but Hsu declined to comment on its specific location.
Hezbollah fighters use pagers as a low-tech means of communication to prevent Israel from tracking their location.
But the devices were modified by Mossad "at a production level," a senior Lebanese source told reporters.
"Mossad installed an explosive board in the device, which receives the code. It is very difficult to detect in any way. Even with any device or scanner," the source said.
An agency spokesperson said 3 000 pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.
Another source told Reuters that up to three grams of explosives were hidden in the new pagers, which went "undetected" by Hezbollah for months.
- On September 17, hundreds of pagers belonging to members of the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah exploded in Lebanon. As a result, 9 people died, and about 3 000 were injured.