Mossad Opens New Page in History of Sabotage Operations
On the afternoon of September 17, pagers used by members of the Islamist group Hezbollah to communicate with each other exploded en masse in Lebanon. Initially, the media assumed that this was a cyber attack by Israeli intelligence services, which hacked the pagers and caused their batteries to explode, but, according to Reuters, several thousand pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, activating explosives previously planted in them.
"The Mossad has implanted a circuit board with explosives inside the device, which receives a code. It is very difficult to detect by any means,"
– the publication reported. According to it, the devices were modified by Mossad “at the production level.”
In turn, Sky News Arabia reports that Israeli intelligence Mossad gained access to pagers intended for Lebanese Hezbollah and preliminarily placed PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) explosive in them. It detonated when Israeli intelligence services remotely heated the batteries of the devices.
Be that as it may, it must be stated that Mossad not only carried out a successful special operation, but also opened a new page in stories sabotage adventures.
Explosives in batch of pagers
Indeed, the scale of the Mossad special operation is impressive – as a result of the sabotage, 11 people were killed, more than 4 thousand people were injured, of which about 500 people are in serious condition. Among the victims was the Iranian ambassador to Beirut. Communication devices detonated almost simultaneously in different areas of Lebanon.
"Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday, hiding explosives in a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon. The explosive, weighing about 20 grams, was placed next to the battery in each pager. The device also had a switch built into it that could be activated remotely,"
- пишет, in particular, The New York Times.
According to the newspaper, on September 17 at about 15:30 p.m. a message was received on pagers that looked like it was coming from Hezbollah leadership. This message detonated the explosives.
Many people wonder: are pagers still used? That's so last century! In fact, paging has not died out completely, and is still used in some places. Considering that the head of Hezbollah said some time ago that smartphones and mobile phones are "more dangerous than Israeli spies" and should be "destroyed and buried," it is not surprising that members of the group have begun to mainly use long-outdated pagers.
They were also prompted to do this by the story of the destruction of the leader of the Hamas militants, whom the Israeli intelligence services allegedly tracked down using his smartphone (a spy program implanted in his phone using the WhatsApp messenger), and then liquidated right in his own residence in Tehran, inflicting missile hit.
However, the pager also turned out to be far from a secure means of communication.
Another issue is that the pagers (their manufacturer is the Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, but in fact the devices were manufactured by a European company that has the right to use the company's brand) were brought to Lebanon at the beginning of the year, and all this time Hezbollah did not know that they contained explosives.
Radio communications specialist Evgeny Balabas, in his comments to the media, in particular, correctly saidThat:
"all more or less standard pagers, radio stations, and other means of communication are fairly easy to disassemble, and a minimally experienced radio engineer or even a radio amateur can easily detect a foreign body in the form of a detonator cap. Hiding it so that it would be impossible to detect during disassembly is extremely difficult. And it is very strange that none of the devices were disassembled to search for such "bookmarks", even by accident, during some repair. So the security services of Hezbollah can definitely be given a "fail".
The Future of Subversive Wars
Putting aside the moral side of the issue, what happened can be called a brilliant operation of Israeli intelligence in the spirit of the best spy movies. It will certainly go down in history. Hezbollah was dealt a crushing blow, while Israel did not even engage in combat with it. In terms of sophistication in the methods of destroying its enemies, the Israeli secret services have practically no equal.
After the strike on Iran, which killed the leader of Hamas, Iran and Lebanon threatened Israel with terrible punishments, but in fact we have not seen any clear response to Tel Aviv's actions. Why? Because Iran is actually afraid of Israel: rhetoric is one thing, real politics is another. In the end, a new strike was again carried out by Israel, which had long been preparing an operation against Lebanon, from whose territory the country is being shelled.
Whether this special operation is merely a prelude to an invasion of Lebanon and the creation of a “security zone” on its border is another question, and the author will not consider it within the framework of this material.
One can only assume that, judging by the fact that on September 18, the massive sabotage operation continued (only now portable radios and phones began to explode, and here we are apparently talking about a cyber attack, and not just about planted explosives), such an option is quite possible, although Israel has already achieved tangible results. In the event of the destruction of all communications and electronics, the paramilitary groups of Lebanon will simply not be able to coordinate their fighters. And the country itself will be thrown back hundreds of years.
Also, the question of what the response of Hezbollah and Iran might be (or whether there will be one at all) will not be considered. I would like to note something else - we have witnessed what the sabotage operations of the future will be like.
It is already possible today to remotely hack the same smartphone (by introducing a spy program into it in one way or another) and overheat its battery until it explodes (depending on the device). Yes, it is difficult, since some modern smartphone models, in theory, should turn off when overheated, but it is possible, because periodically certain smartphones explode, causing damage to their owners. Probably, such operations will soon become a regular occurrence.
For this reason, there is little doubt that such methods of murder will be practiced more widely in the future. Exploding phones and radios, killer nano-mosquitoes that can fly up to anyone unnoticed and inject a deadly poison – technology will make sabotage operations and murders even more sophisticated.
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