Trail of exploding pagers in Lebanon runs to Taiwan, Hungary

BUDAPEST/TAIPEI – The trail of the pagers that blew up in Lebanon on Sept 17, killing or maiming thousands and sparking fears of a new Middle East war, leads to a small post office wedged between a highway and a dilapidated railway station in Budapest, Hungary.

That is the official address for BAC Consulting KFT, which produced them under a commercial agreement, according to Gold Apollo, the Taiwanese company whose brand was on the exploding devices. 

But a woman at the Budapest office said the only sign she had seen of BAC was monthly visits from a representative to pick up the mail. A building in Paris listed as the address of BAC’s chief executive turned out to be barracks for French gendarmes.

The company “is a trading intermediary with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary”, according to the government in Budapest.

In Taiwan, Mr Hsu Ching-kuang, Gold Apollo’s chairman, said he was puzzled when

BAC asked to license production of its AR-924 pager two years ago

but went ahead with what seemed a routine deal.

“I have been doing this for so many years and now I have this stain,” he told reporters in Taiwan. “How did I get involved in this political terror incident?”

Lebanon pointed the finger at Israel’s Mossad spy service for what intelligence experts called one of the most audacious “supply-chain” operations in the history of spycraft.

Israeli officials were studiously quiet, but analysts there hailed what they described as a covert operation that targeted members of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group whose attacks have forced tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate their homes in the north of the country. 

But civilians also fell victim to the pager blasts, which killed at least 12, including two children. “The fear and terror unleashed is profound,” Mr Volker Turk, the United Nations human rights chief, said, denouncing the civilian impact as “unacceptable” and calling for an independent investigation.

Reports of new explosions of devices including walkie-talkies on Sept 18

added to the impact of what appears to be one of the biggest targeted assassination attempts ever. There was no immediate word on how many Hezbollah officials had been killed or injured or how its security had been so compromised.

Fears of a wider war grew as Hezbollah vowed retaliation, as did Iran, whose ambassador to Lebanon was injured. 

“There are two main questions: What was Israel’s intention and what is Hezbollah going to do?” said Mr Orna Mizrahi, a former member of Israel’s National Security Council.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced “a new phase in the war” on Sept 18, saying, “the centre of gravity is shifting to the north”.

The transition from the fight against Hamas in Gaza to the threat from Hezbollah raised fears of a widening conflict. But officials said there was no sign of a broader Israeli military push against the group so far.

“This may have been an act of deterrence, to physically impair a significant portion of Hezbollah’s combat capacity and make it think twice about continuing the confrontation,” said Mr Ami Ayalon, a retired Israeli admiral and former director of the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet. 

It remains unclear if that worked.

Most analysts expect Hezbollah to seek vengeance

although it may take some time to plan the attack. Schools opened in Israel as usual on Sept 18 and there was no change in home front command for citizens, though the military did heighten its state of alert.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been holding security assessments but still plans to fly to New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly. 

Reaction among US and European officials mixed admiration for the audacity of the operation with alarm at the prospect of expanded war in the region. One US military official said Israel’s action on Sept 17 could reduce the risk of war by shocking Hezbollah – or engender massive retaliation.

Lebanese investigators believe the pagers probably contained explosives rather than being programmed to overheat the battery, according to an official close to the investigation, who asked not to be named because they are not authorised to speak to the media.

Most of the injuries were to faces, eyes and hands because people were looking at their pagers when the explosions occurred, the official said.

Social media reverberated with video clips of booby-trapped pagers self-destructing in the pockets of Hezbollah militants shopping casually at supermarkets, working in suburban offices or travelling around in cars.

Hospitals across Beirut and in south Lebanon were flooded with victims. At least two health workers were among those killed on Sept 17, the Associated Press reported. The explosions may have involved 3,000 to 5,000 pagers. 

“Simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law,” Mr Turk, the UN human rights chief, said. 

Mossad has a long history of using targeted assassinations as part of Israel’s approach to its enemies and of plotting complex sabotage operations that leave little trace of those who are behind them. Shell companies can provide vital links in the chain.

“A large number of operations carried out against the Iranian nuclear programme set up shell companies that sold faulty equipment to the Iranians for their centrifuges,” said Mr Michael Bar-Zohar, an Israeli historian who’s written a book on Mossad. 

“Usually, the ones setting up these companies are Mossad agents and they manage them as well,” he said. But sometimes they outsource it to other people with “a completely unblemished record who can’t come under suspicion”, he added.

Hezbollah had used low-tech pagers rather than more powerful smartphones to stay under the radar of Israeli intelligence and minimise risks its communications would be compromised. But Israel has spent years working to penetrate the group’s ranks.

“Such an operation can only be carried out by a state,” said Mr Oded Eilam, who once headed counter-terrorism for Mossad. “When you do, it is due to a combination of three things: readiness, the shelf life of the devices, and your strategic goal.”

A day after the

Oct 7 Hamas attack

in southern Israel that set off the unrelenting Israeli counterattack in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah began shelling Israel’s north in solidarity, driving tens of thousands from their homes near the border with Lebanon. Israel has been hitting back hard, pushing Lebanese from their homes. 

In recent days, Israel announced that its war in Gaza is nearing one of its goals of making Hamas inoperable, and that its attention is turning north to drive Hezbollah from the border and allow residents of northern Israel to return home.

For that, Israeli leaders say, the country is prepared to go to war, though it would prefer a deal whereby Hezbollah fighters and equipment agree to retreat.

In some Arab states opposed to Iran’s expanding influence through proxy militias such as Hezbollah and Hamas, officials are privately pleased about what they see as Israeli actions exposing Tehran’s inability to defend its allies.

Some in Israel have urged a military operation against Hezbollah for some time. Among them is a reserve brigadier-general Amir Avivi, founder of a hawkish group known as the Israel Defence and Security Forum. 

“The moment Hezbollah decides to retaliate, we will preempt and that will decide the war,” he said. 

That may not go as well as planned, according to the former Shin Bet chief, Mr Ayalon. 

“This was a brilliant operation in terms of intelligence and execution – truly, on a global scale,” he said. “But I have been saying for many years that we are good at missions and bad at wars.” BLOOMBERG