The BAC company, which produced the pagers that detonated in Lebanon on Tuesday, was established by Israel as part of an intricate scheme, according to a report by The New York Times.
Based in Hungary, BAC had a license to use the branding of the Taiwanese firm Apollo Gold.
The blasts, which affected pagers on Tuesday and hand-held radios on Wednesday, appeared to target Hezbollah operatives almost exclusively. Of the more than 3,000 individuals injured and fewer than 40 who died, only four were reportedly unrelated to Hezbollah—one being the son of a Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese MP. However, the son was found to be carrying a Hezbollah pager, casting doubt on the claim that he was an innocent civilian.
The Times also suggested that the Wednesday explosions might have involved “more explosives” compared to those on Tuesday.
While Israel has neither acknowledged nor claimed responsibility for the explosions, a number of current and former defense and intelligence personnel assert that Israel is indeed behind these incidents, which they categorize as “attacks.”
These officials, speaking to The Times under the condition of anonymity, described the operation as both prolonged and intricate.
In February, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that the mobile phones used by his operatives and their families were Israeli “agents” revealing their locations. He urged his followers to bury their phones, advising them: “Put it in an iron box and lock it.”
American intelligence suggested that Nasrallah might have considered pagers a preferable alternative, as they could transmit data without disclosing the user’s location and were more difficult to intercept.
According to The Times, even before Nasrallah made this decision, Israel had initiated the creation of a front company to pose as an international pager manufacturer. Citing three intelligence officers familiar with the operation, the report reveals that BAC, along with at least two other front companies, was established to obscure the identities of the true manufacturers of the pagers.
The Times report emphasized, “BAC did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers,” but noted, “The only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary” and were produced separately.
Initial shipments of the pagers began in the summer of 2022, but production rapidly escalated following Nasrallah’s condemnation of advanced communication technologies in February. Over the summer, thousands of these devices were delivered to Lebanon, according to two American intelligence officials.
The three intelligence officials also indicated that Hezbollah and its allies were convinced that cellphone communication was neither secure nor fully encrypted, with both cameras and microphones being activated to monitor their users. Consequently, Nasrallah mandated that Hezbollah orders and plans should not be transmitted via cellphone, banning cellphones from meetings. Instead, operatives were instructed to carry pagers at all times, to be used for issuing instructions during wartime.
Israeli intelligence referred to these pagers as “buttons,” the report added. On Tuesday, messages sent to these pagers, apparently from Hezbollah’s senior leadership, triggered explosions when the messages were accessed.
{Matzav.com}