Last weeks pagers exploded all over Lebanon. They were pagers bought by Hezbolah, but most of them were not used by military personnel or even by Hezbollah members, though many were.
The attacks were set up to be particularly nasty. Small ball bearings were embedded in the pagers. First the pager would buzz. The person would grab it, bring it up to their face so they could look at the screen, where they would see an error message.
Then the pager would explode. The most common injuries were maiming (the hand), terrible facial wounds, and eye-injuries. I don’t know what percentage caused permanent vision loss but I saw one interview with a surgeon who said he’d removed more eyes in the last day than he had in a career of over twenty years.
Civilians, women and children were hurt.
This attack had been set up a long time ago. Israel had, apparently, received reports that someone was suspicious and that it was a “use it or lose it” situation. They chose to use it. Presumably they had been saving it to use during the next ground war, but that was no longer an option.
There are obvious and in-obvious consequences to this. Hezbollah will retaliate, of course. They say that the current increased attacks, which are hitting as far South as Haifa and appear designed to blow a corridor to Tel Aviv so that becomes a viable target are not that retaliation, but are instead a reaction to Israeli attacks on Beirut. That’s a pretty serious escalation, especially if repeatedly hitting Tel Aviv is part of the plan. An even more serious escalation because of the pager attacks risks all-out war, though that’s not say it isn’t justified.
(To state the obvious, if the pager attacks weren’t terrorism, nothing is.)
But beyond the possibility of a serious war, there are downstream effects. The pagers were branded as made by Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, but were actually manufactured by Hungary’s BAC. Either BAC modified the pagers, or Israel intercepted them during shipment and made the necessary changes.
Hezbollah has reported ordered new pagers (they’re part of how they avoid electronic surveillance) with instructions that all manufacturing takes place in China. If I were them I’d have those pagers guarded from the second they leave the factory to the point of delivery in Lebanon.
But this is a real Pandora’s Box situation. There’s no reason this couldn’t be done to anyone’s devices and almost everyone carries a phone these days. Most of them can’t be fully opened and inspected. You have no way of knowing whether or not there’s a bomb. (Correction–hacking alone is not enough. My apologies.)
It is noticeable that the US and most European countries refused to condemn the attacks. If they won’t even say that this sort of thing is off the table, who will trust that they wouldn’t do this themselves?
There are a lot of countries, and a lot of people (dissidents and so on) which have good reason to know that the West is willing to engage in assassination, violence and coups against them. This isn’t remotely in question: the West and especially the US, France and Britain, have a record. And other Western countries usually cooperate or at least do what they’re told.
So consequence one is going to be a lot of people and organizations a lot less willing to buy Western equipment. Maybe Gold Apollo wasn’t involved. Maybe Hungary’s BAC wasn’t involved. I’m inclined to believe them, actually, especially Gold Apollo, because this is the sort of thing which destroys companies.
But maybe they were, and how can a company really stand up to and refuse strong governmental pressure? It can’t, not if the government is really serious and it’s a domestic firm. Even foreign governments can have a lot of clout if you do business in their country.
Another likely effect is the rise of transparent electronics, similar to technology used in prisons or the transparent phones of the early 2000s (which was just for aesthetic effect.)
In a lot of secure areas I would expect that people won’t be allowed to bring in their own phones. This is already the case in some very secure areas, but I expect it to spread. It may also change policies about phones and other small electric devices on planes.
This is another case of Israel and the West screwing themselves. It’s going to hurt economically and it’s going to lead to copycat attacks by others, including on the West.
And, of course, it was a monstrous action. Very on-brand for Israel and very normal for the US to fail to condemn it.
Even more than before I just don’t want to hear American officials condemning terrorism. Ever. If the word still means anything, they don’t what it is.
Flaser
One small, but important correction:
Hacking alone is insufficient to explode the standard batteries of our devices. There is no means to induce this from software as running the system hot will not produce the effect.
Yes, excessive heat can set it on fire, but in the majority of cases the results are fiery, not explosive. For the latter, the battery bulk of the battery must be physically breached, thus exposing all of its reactive alkali metal – like lithium – to the air and triggering a prompt reaction. The Isrealis implanted small explosive charges in the pagers and walkie-talkies for this purpose.
Mark Level
In some ways, this terrorist act raises more questions than answers can be found for, but I’d say the following, tentatively:
1. It was pretty shocking, I didn’t even know the former CIA head & ultimate war cabinet insider Leon Panetta was still alive, but he spoke up & said the obvious– this was a terrorist act. The indiscriminate nature of it makes it even worse, of course. If someone as deeply invested in the US MIC as Panetta is stepping away from “Israel has a right to defend itself” b.s., that doesn’t bode well for the Zionist entity.
2. The first person I saw who pointed out the international treaty against booby trap bombs was former barrister Alexander Mercouris of the Duran, who noted that Israel IS a signatory to that treaty, so there’s one more count against Israel if/when the US’s ability to grant them complete impunity from international law is stopped by RoW. (He also gave a little history of the use of such devices during wartime, mentioning that WW II Italy dropped what looked like (smoking) pipes into areas of Africa it was trying to claim that were small bombs to maim or kill those who picked them up. I seem to recall that the US did this along the Ho Chih Minh trail back in the day, in Cambodia, Laos, etc. as well, children’s toys the most popular item to kill with.
3. The Lebanese have no choice but to fight now, as Israeli aggression again escalates to their North, & the Izzys are trying to drag the US into a regional war. Which begs the real question I have–
4. Where are the Iranians? The murder of a Hamas negotiator in Iran happened probably 2 months ago, & “retaliation” was solemnly pledged. Apart from one very small demonstration of the size & power of their missile arrays which included hits on a couple of Israeli military bases (which the Israelis exulted had not one casualty) that was coordinated with the US, they have done nada, nothing, zip!! All hat, no cattle? It certainly looks that way. Around Oct. 10, 2023 I saw a clip of a Palestinian saying of the Saudis, if they do nothing (to help us, to blunt the genocide) they’d better know they are next. Why is Iran, despite all the US-Zionist screeching that they are “the center of mideast terrorism” & need to be liquidated, seemingly doing absolutely nothing, playing Antigonish’s “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” I don’t get it, frankly. Maybe others on this thread have an answer?
5. Not entirely OT– I see that only bits & pieces of the Collective West/ Axis of Evil/ Empire of Lies are accepting the writing on the wall that Ukraine Delenda Est. There is a shit ton of denial, bargaining, etc. Assuming the Zionists drag the moribund Biden administration into an escalating Western Asian war (“Dr. Jill” presided at the head of the table over the Biden cabinet’s first meeting in 11 months the other day– so I guess she or Jake Sullivan are the “real” President, or share the duties), won’t the US then be forced to dump the loss of eastern Ukraine’s 4 regions onto the heads of the Europeans? I guess somebody gets a silver lining while the US Empire starts its final Pyrrhic War at the behest of the holy Zionist mafia who run things.
______________________________________________________________________________
“Antigonish” by William Hughes Mearns
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there!
He wasn’t there again today,
I wish, I wish he’d go away!
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away….
Tempo
https://youtu.be/O3PfsndsihY
So future tech will resemble prison tech.
ZapMan
Ian,
If true, doesn’t look good for Apollo Gold’s denial:
https://x.com/NuryVittachi/status/1837682944611438847
Bill H.
Iran will do nothing for fear of being labelled “anti-semites.” A fate worse than death. Hizbelloh will not fight back for the same reason. Russia will remain on the sideline for the same reason. No one dares to raise the ire of the Israelis, because to do so means having the American government call them bad names.
Israel will not invade Lebanon on the ground because the last time they did that they were humiliated. They will bomb Hizbelloh out of existence in a massive aerial campaign, the same way we eliminated the North Vietnamese.
Willy
What if a pager been on a commercial air flight? Considering innocent bystanders to be acceptable casualties used to demonstrate great evil, and few would want to have more to do with the people associated. Not so much anymore it seems. It seems only a few media outfits are trying to trace the source of the explosives.
Hsu Ching-kuang is an accessory to murder. Saving a buck by ignoring quality control is a poor excuse. Yeah, just make exploding shit then put my company name on it. It’s amazing there isn’t an international organization tasked with sourcing state-sponsored terror shit, since without it, this type of thing will only get worse.
Mark Level
To Bill H– I think 85% of the world/ RoW sees thru that “anti-Semitic” bullshit. It is also counter-intuitive to me that while the Lebanese are being viciously attacked, they will cower & not fight back (esp. after the most recent atrocity!) But again, Iran sitting and doing nothing while anticipating Israel hitting them with nukes at some point is inexplicable with me. As humans, if it’s life or death for us, the majority have the tendency to at least fight back & not simply let ourselves be exterminated.
” . . . the same way we eliminated (?) the North Vietnamese.” Is that snark or a joke? You are aware of who won the Vietnam war, aren’t you?
Oh, as to the fact that the Ukraine war has already been lost, Col. Douglas McGregor speaking to political scientist Glenn Diesen is quite illuminating– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l_-BBzI3jo
I know Feral Finster differs with me on this, but I think the Fat Lady is singing soon in Russia & the Ukraine. (It will soon be a much diminished “The Border” than it is now.)
Tallifer
The pagers were bought by Hezbollah for the express purpose of distributing only to their operatives, because cell phones were too risky for communication. The pagers were for coordinating Hezbollah’s terrorism, not for civilian use. (NYT, Guardian, passim)
elkern
Yeah, there’s def something fishy about the arrangement between Apollo Gold and BAC.
Under “normal” conditions, any company that allows someone else to use their Logo would want to protect their Brand by making sure that the sub-contractor doesn’t make shoddy products. This would require (1) sharing design & process data with the sub-contractor and (2) having engineers inspect the sub-contractor’s factory and test a sample of the products.
I’d guess that Apollo Gold accepted the opaque arrangement with BAC only because they thought it was a CIA/USA operation. Of course, that could well have been the case with that original contract; the CIA could have done that as a favor for Mossad, or worse, Mossad might have hijacked the operation from there…)
In any case, Apollo Gold is [theoretically] responsible for any “damages” resulting from “normal use” of its products, though I presume that Taiwan’s legal system would protect the company from any such lawsuits.
Still, Apollo Gold will probably just fold up shop and sell their factories to some other Tech Mogul. Any personnel with detailed knowledge of the BAC deal will be quietly moved to a gated community in Arizona or such.
But there will be ramifications for [all?] other Taiwanese Tech companies; can *their* products be trusted? (No). Hezbollah will not be the only customer to switch their electronics purchases from Taiwan to China.
With this operation, Israel has burned Taiwan.
The upside, I suppose, is that it exposes a rift within US Foreign Policy circles, between the NeoCons (focused on keeping the US military involved in the Middle East) and the “grown-ups” who want to Pivot To Asia (to fight China).
Hmmm, bonus observation:
Israel must recognize that the USA won’t protect them forever, and that China will be the next Global Power, so Israel must be looking for ways to get China on their side. The methods that worked in the USA (and Britain?) – financial influence over politics and Media – won’t work in China. Perversely, the only thing of value Israel can offer China is influence in – and intel on – the USA.
Super-paranoid conjecture: burning Taiwan was an intentional (if secondary?) aspect of the Pager-Bomb project from the start?
Dan Kelly
Where did Hezbollah get its own fiber network with accompanying devices that the military wing uses (in addition to using non-tech comms)? Did it build it itself?
I ask because I don’t understand why they wouldn’t secure all their tech from reliable sources. The ‘civilian wing’ is just as important, and it’s not a hard divide anyway – some of the military wing were victims of this as well.
He also gave a little history of the use of such devices during wartime, mentioning that WW II Italy dropped what looked like (smoking) pipes into areas of Africa it was trying to claim that were small bombs to maim or kill those who picked them up. I seem to recall that the US did this along the Ho Chih Minh trail back in the day
The US also seeded rain clouds over the Ho Chi Minh trail to wipe out the supply route. It was called Operation Popeye:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye
Cloud seeding and weather manipulation go back to WWII and before.
So, ‘they’ have been perfecting weather modification techniques for close to a centruy now. China currently has the world’s largest weather modification program:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Beijing_Weather_Modification_Office
ZapMan posted a link to a story on Nury Vittachi’s twitter feed. There is also this:
https://x.com/NuryVittachi/status/1727851651900620813
It’s all hollywood. And finance.
Finance, war and image-narrative to induce belief.
Ian Welsh
Sigh.
“As of 22 September 2024, 42 people had died,[9][10] including at least 12 civilians.[11] The incident was described as Hezbollah’s biggest security breach since the start of the Israel–Hezbollah conflict in October 2023.[12]
The first wave of explosions occurred on 17 September, around 15:30 EEST, killing at least 12 people, including two Hezbollah members and two children,”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_pager_explosions
They were not just used by Hezbollah members, though Hezbollah did use them.
Hezbollah is involved in less terrorism than Israel, by any reasonable definition of terrorism. It’s also not committing a genocide, but is trying to stop one.
If Leon Panetta, of all people says it’s terrorism, well… (admission against interest and history.)
Curt Kastens
The use it or lose it aspect of the story may also be disinformation. The purpose of spreading this part of the story would be to get Hezbollah members to have doubts about the organizations operational secrecy.
Mark Level
Thank you, Ian! Your editorial response seems to me to be to Tallifer. Some people just read straight propaganda & have zero critical thinking skills (or awareness of logical fallacies) to do any research on their own. They just parrot what the “authorities” tell them. (Which is a type of passive authoritarianism.)
Did we all forget how much the NYT hyped for months the Iraqi “Weapons of Mass Destruction” & also the “Saddam was helping with 9/11” lies?
The UK Guardian used to be somewhat “left”, but not for many years. When Russia launched the SMO in Feb. 2022, I was not totally well-versed in the history leading up to it, the Maidan Coup of 2014 and the installation of the Azov Neo-Nazis, etc. What immediately got my hackles up and made me start doing my own research was a false story in the Guardian, so dumb that the lies could not have been incompetence. When the Russians took the major city of Mariupol, there was a big contingent of the Azov folks hiding underneath the Azovstal plant for days, until hunger drove them out & they surrendered.
The Guardian flat lied & claimed that crew was being “evacuated” to safety!! Uhm, no, the Russians were figuring out who were the actual Nazis and who were not, & sending the former to higher security confinement to trade for Russian prisoners. I assume if there were area residents hiding down there, they may have been released. (That’s a guess; I can’t prove the hypothetical.) A great journalist on the site, Abraham Stein (I think his name might suggest why he had a stake on the issue) filmed prisoners removing their shirts and showing giant tattoos of the Black Sun, Herr mustache-man, swastikas & etc. etc. I don’t know if the Guardian ever issued a correction– probably not, my guess is that they just buried the story completely in order not to make The Narrative look bad.
But some people have no ability to see thru obvious (Iraqis took babies out of incubators to kill them for fun!) fabrications, however.
Mark Pontin
[1] Tallifer wrote: ‘The pagers were for coordinating Hezbollah’s terrorism, not for civilian use. (NYT, Guardian, passim)’
By insiders’ accounts, this is complete bull and *precisely the opposite is true* as during the 2010s Hezbollah’s military wing moved off pagers and such to fiber optic and direct face-to-face communication, while Hezbollah’s social services wing within Lebanon continued the use of these devices.
If so, it was *only civilians* that could be effectively targeted by this means.
[2] About electronics again, but off-topic. Still, I thought you’d be interested in this in the FT —
Hed: ‘Huawei laptop reveals China’s progress towards tech self-sufficiency:
A look inside the bestselling Qingyun L540 shows how the campaign to use locally made components is progressing’
As expected, they’re driving forward fast on all fronts. Decent reporting with specifics.
Archived: https://archive.ph/fvwjc
Original: https://www.ft.com/content/5511d73a-1ada-4884-a559-681502300e4f
If you can get behind the FT paywall, the original has some mobile graphics that don’t reproduce in the archived version.
mago
It’s obvious that had a similar action targeted Israel or any Western ally we’d hear terrorism and retaliation screamed non stop from every screen and media source.
But you know, since it’s brown skinned Islamic terrorists, shrug.
Actually, the reaction among the political class and their media enablers is inhumane. It’s all like wow, better than James Bond! Cool man! You go dudes! Wish I’d thought of that.
Eyes blown out, your balls shredded, screaming, tearing gaping wounds. Who cares? Ha ha. Just part of the game. Besides, they deserve it.
Yeah, it’s all Hollywood for these people who would whimper, moan and rush to the emergency room if they had blood spilling from some inconsequential wound.
It’s a sign of the times that these moral weaklings disdain empathy and compassion as emotions for losers, while cheerleading death and destruction.
I was 13 or so when Barry McGuire sang: . . . and you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
The prophesy is coming home.
Carborundum
The ball bearings thing sounds made up to me. One wouldn’t want to add material clearly visible on security screening (I would not be at all surprised to learn that Hezbollah had actually X-rayed these things) that’s so obviously not part of the design. Looking at the fragments that have been shown on various Twitter images, this looks like a small blast charge, call it a couple of grams of TNT equivalent (there is reporting indicating that the explosive used was PETN, which seems plausible). That would easily provide enough energy to drive circuit board and case fragments deep into tissue. Those fragments will actually be *worse* to deal with than steel because it’s harder to ensure that the debridement caught everything.
As to who got hit by these attacks, we really have no good idea. Given that the same folks currently condemning the collateral would be quick explain it away if the target vector were reversed (i.e., they would be quite alright with hitting Israeli non-combatants), I’m largely unmoved by their critique. Given IDF norms in this conflict, this is may be the worst action to focus on as a violation of the rules of warfare. They’ve repeatedly downed entire apartment buildings, killing tens of civilians at a time, to segment *suspected* tunnel systems. Giving oxygen to something that’s potentially defensible and having the debate about the legality of the measure turn attention away from clear, industrial scale violations of the rules of warfare does not strike me as a net benefit. While these devices clearly fall under established treaty law, how they’ve been employed is a lot greyer area than people think. Double tapping apartment buildings with Mk83s for zero military advantage is not grey at all.
In terms of Hezbollah strategy, I don’t have a clear understanding of what you mean by blowing a corridor to Tel Aviv, but if you mean movement of ground forces or enhancing the deployment of missiles, drones, etc., I’m afraid I don’t see it. Hezbollah’s not dumb enough to step off prepared ground and they haven’t hit anything that materially degrades Israeli ABM capabilities beyond the expenditure of finite interceptor supply. I suspect they *could* hit targets that would degrade Israeli ABM capability to some extent, but it would mean deploying systems they probably don’t want to expose.
As I see it, the key issues that they’re facing are calibrating response (I think this is steadily becoming less of an issue given that it really doesn’t seem like Israel wants a reset to pre-conflict norms) and the risk of exposing high value systems and/or having those systems not perform credibly. They don’t want this fight; they have little to gain and a lot to lose. Israel looks pretty clearly to be escalating to goad them into response. Hezbollah leadership is generally quite accomplished with strategic patience, but the pressure on them is unprecedented. The thing that’s got to figure prominently their mind is that this is not evolving like 2006 – they don’t have the strategic initiative and their adversary is not obligingly playing to their strengths (they may yet, IDF magical thinking can be pretty staggering to behold).
mago
OT to some degree, but it’s reported that Pennsylvania guvner Shapiro signed a bomb today in company with his good friend Z.
So glad our leaders are clean, good and upright as well as hypocrisy free while looking out for the welfare of others.
I’m trying to kick my life long habit of cynicism and sarcasm, but lord you know it ain’t easy.
Anon
Thermal runaway alone is not a plausible explanation for the explosions, given their apparent force and consistency. I saw musings that the (sealed) batteries of the devices were laced with an explosive compound, and this is far more likely. There is still significant logistical effort that goes into making something like this happen, they are not magicians. Whether you warrant such action against you, I cannot speak to; it seems you would have to ask the spooks.
Revelo
1) Hungary BAC was a front company with 1 director/employee, no real business activity. BAC didn’t manufacture anything, they just acted as intermediary, presumably cooperating with Israel. Sorry, don’t have the links but this info is all over the internet.
2) Iran is being patient. USA and Israel get weaker by the day. The longer Iran waits, the greater their chance of success in any war. If possible, they will wait until after Russia has clearly won in Ukraine and is thus in a position to threaten USA troops in Moldova, Finland, etc, and USA occupied in a war with China, so that USA can only allocate minimum resources to fighting Iran.
Carborundum
Spot reporting now indicating that Hezbollah has acknowledged firing a Qadr 1 at Tel Aviv. If accurate, that’s the biggest thing they’ve ever launched. Notably, at least the first stage of this is assessed as liquid fuelled (supposedly this is a Shahab 3a derivative), meaning that there should be an elevated signature while preparing for launch (though significantly reduced launch prep time was apparently a key feature of the improvements to baseline Shahab 3). Same reporting also indicating that David’s Sling (Israeli medium-range ABM system) successfully intercepted.
It says something about the effectiveness of Israeli ISTAR and the effectiveness of Hezbollah masking that they’ve been able to pull this off – I would *not* be lingering at the launch point… Assuming that they did launch this as a singleton, I would tend to assess this as a message; if they wanted to do serious damage they’d have salvoed multiple vehicles to try and overwhelm ABM defences.