The explosion of electronic devices in Lebanon could be a prelude to a wider attack, says the WSJ.

The explosion of pagers and other electronic devices in Lebanon has sharply increased the Pentagon’s concerns about a possible ground war between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

The paper quoted US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin as telling senior Pentagon officials at a meeting on Monday, before the hundreds of explosions on Tuesday and yesterday, that he feared Israel might soon launch an offensive against Hezbollah, with which Israel has been exchanging rockets and air strikes since October 8.

According to the WSJ, Israel’s ‘brazen’ pager and radio attacks in Lebanon have heightened US concerns about a possible invasion. “I am very concerned that this is getting out of control,” said a senior defence official, echoing comments made by other Pentagon aides since Tuesday.

After months of operations in Gaza, the Israeli army moved a division of commandos and paratroopers from the south of the country to the north in recent days, according to a person familiar with the matter. The division comprises thousands of troops.

US officials said there had been no call-up of reservists, which would be the most important sign that an invasion was imminent, and that even if an invasion was decided, it could be weeks before Israeli forces were in a position to launch a major offensive. But US defence officials said Israel would be able to carry out a smaller operation more quickly without making other major military moves.

We are at the beginning of a new phase in the war, we are allocating resources and forces to the northern region, and our mission is clear: to ensure the safe return of communities in northern Israel to their homes,’ Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said yesterday: ‘This requires a change in the security situation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said in a video message that Israelis evacuated from northern Israel because of clashes with Hezbollah would ‘return safely to their homes’. That is exactly what we will do,’ Netanyahu said.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also told reporters that there was still a way to end the crisis through diplomacy, not war. Nothing is inevitable,’ Kirby said of a possible conflict.

Hezbollah said it would retaliate against Israel for the pager attacks. The Israeli authorities made no public statement about the explosions. The Lebanese government blamed Israel, saying Tuesday’s attacks killed 12 people and wounded more than 2,800, while yesterday’s killed 20 and wounded more than 450.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told US special envoy Amos Hochstein in Tel Aviv on Monday that ‘military action is the only way to return the residents of the north to their homes’.

“You do it as a shaping before you do anything else,” said a former defence official, according to the WSJ, referring to the timing of the detonation of pagers, radios and other electronic devices.

Israel informed the United States on Tuesday of the attack in which explosives hidden in pagers were detonated, the Associated Press (AP) quoted a US official as saying.

The AR-924 pagers used in Tuesday’s attack were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT in Budapest, Hungary, according to a statement by Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, which authorised the use of its brand name on the pagers.

BAC is suspected of being a shell company. No one has ever been seen at the BAC office in Budapest, Sputnik reported.

Gold Apollo chairman Hsu Ching-kuang told reporters on Wednesday that the company had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years.

The shell company registered in Hungary in May 2022

BAC Consulting, a limited liability company, was registered in May 2022, according to company records. The company has a share capital of €7,840 and generated revenues of $725,768 in 2022 and $593,972 in 2023, records show.

BAC is registered in the name of Cristiana Rosaria Bársony-Arcidiacono, who describes herself on her LinkedIn page as a strategic consultant and business developer.

Among other things, Bársony-Arcidiacono says on her page that she is on the board of the Earth Child Institute, a sustainability group. The group’s website does not list Bársony-Arcidiacono as a board member.

The battery life of the pager was the reason for its popularity in Lebanon

Experts believe the pagers were packed with explosives before delivery. According to the specifications advertised on Gold Apollo’s website before it was removed after the attack, the AR-924 pager, advertised as ‘rugged’, contains a rechargeable lithium battery.

The battery life was claimed to be up to 85 days. This is important in Lebanon, where power cuts are common after years of economic collapse.

The pagers also operate on a different radio network to mobile phones, making them more resilient in emergencies. This is one of the reasons why many hospitals around the world still rely on them.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said Gold Apollo had exported 260,000 sets of pagers from early 2022 to August 2024, including more than 40,000 sets between January and August this year.

The ministry said there was no record of any direct export of Gold Apollo pagers to Lebanon.

How was the attack planned?

According to Lebanese security sources quoted by AP, Israel planted explosives in 5,000 pagers months before the deadly blasts.

A senior Lebanese security source said the Israeli spy service had implanted thousands of pagers with explosives activated by encrypted messages during production, months before they were imported by Hezbollah.

Some experts told AP that the explosions were most likely the result of interference in the supply chain.

Very small explosives could have been placed in the pagers before they were delivered to the Lebanese and then detonated remotely, possibly by radio signal, all at the same time.

Carlos Perez, director of security intelligence at TrustedSec, said that at the time of the attack ‘the battery was probably half explosive and half real’.

A former British Army bomb disposal officer explained that an explosive device has five main components: A container, a battery, a trigger, a detonator and an explosive charge.

“A pager already has three of these,” said the former officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is currently advising clients in the Middle East. You just have to add the detonator and the explosive charge,” he said.

Magnier: The devices were delivered more than 6 months ago

Elijah J. Magnier, a Brussels-based journalist with more than 37 years’ experience in the region, said he had interviewed Hezbollah members and survivors of Tuesday’s pager attack and that the pagers had been supplied more than six months ago.

The pagers worked perfectly for six months,” Magnier said, adding that what triggered the explosion appeared to be an error message sent to all the devices.

Magnier also said that based on his conversations with Hezbollah members, many pagers did not explode, allowing the group to inspect them.

Magnier said they concluded that a highly explosive substance of between 3 and 5 grams had been hidden or embedded in the circuitry.

Yesterday, radio pagers used by many Lebanese, including Hezbollah, were detonated in several Lebanese cities, killing dozens and injuring thousands.

The usual suspect, Israel, is believed to have tampered with these devices, which were delivered to Lebanon a few months ago, at some point in their manufacture and shipment, and planted small quantities of explosives which were activated yesterday by jamming the batteries with some kind of signal.

The intelligence operation organised by “interfering with the shipment” is reminiscent of how US intelligence infiltrates cargoes.

Cisco, which develops networking hardware, software, telecommunications equipment and other high-tech services and products, responded to the US National Security Agency (NSA) in 2014 by condemning the US government’s interference with hardware the company was shipping to customers.

The NSA’s practice of intercepting packages containing hardware as they are delivered to customers, known as “interdiction”, was first revealed in classified documents published in December 2013 by Der Spiegel and journalist Jacob Appelbaum.

NSA opened boxes and planted tracking devices

Cisco made the announcement after a photograph emerged showing federal agents planting a tracking device on one of its routers.

The photos, published by journalist Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept, provided the first visual evidence of the NSA’s covert operation, in which agents seized and opened boxes, dismantled hardware, and planted tracking bugs and beacons for surveillance and sabotage.

One photograph showed four agents carefully removing packing tape from a Cisco-branded box containing computer hardware. The photograph also showed other Cisco-branded boxes stacked in a room that appeared to be part of a larger warehouse.

The agents were described as belonging to the ‘Special Access Operations’ (TAO) unit, the so-called ‘hacking arm’ of the NSA. The agents are tasked with ‘obtaining the unobtainable’ from targets the NSA deems worthy of surveillance.

Another leaked photograph shows how TAO agents obtain such material. The photo shows a ‘loading station’, in the same warehouse, where agents attach beacons and other spy gear to captured hardware before it is repackaged and shipped to the intended user.

The complicity of tech companies

According to the documents published by Greenwald, the NSA says that this interception was possible thanks to the “support of Intelligence Community partners”. In this case, Cisco may have been involved in the operation.

Indeed, shortly after the photos were published, Cisco executive Mark Chandler wrote that the company ‘complies with US regulations’ regarding the export of hardware to certain countries, but condemned the government’s alleged ‘steps to compromise IT products going to customers’.

We should be able to trust the government not to interfere with the lawful delivery of our products as we manufacture them. To do otherwise, and to violate the legitimate privacy rights of individuals and organisations around the world, would undermine confidence in our industry,’ Chandler wrote.

But Chandler stopped short of saying that Cisco was ‘completely in the dark’ about the NSA’s interception of its packets, and did not say whether Cisco was complicit in the interception of certain customers’ packets under secret programmes that the government says are legal.