Lebanon says at least nine people, including an eight-year-old girl, were killed today after pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across the country. Israel has been blamed.
The Mid-East nation's health minister Firass Abiad added more than 2,750 people were injured, over 200 critically, after the devices reportedly heated up before exploding. Mojtaba Amani, Iran's ambassador to the country, was also wounded, it's said.
The Lebanese Red Cross has deployed 130 ambulances and more than 500 EMTs to deal with the aftermath. It has issued an urgent call for blood donors in the country.
A representative of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror organization that has significant power in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera “pagers belonging to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions exploded.”
Video footage of the blasts suggests the pagers were rigged with fast-acting explosives. Some assumed the devices had their lithium-ion batteries shorted somehow, by software or a hardware mechanism, causing them to blow up, though we doubt that happened as that would result in a slow process with smoke, sparks, and flames.
Earlier in the year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned the organization to stop using smartphones as these could be compromised and advised switching to pagers.
Today Hezbollah directly accused Israel of causing the explosions. To us, if that is indeed the case, it appears the devices were intercepted and packed with explosives, either remote detonated or timed somehow, in a physical supply chain style attack.
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It wouldn't be the first time this kind of thing has happened. In 1996, Israeli intelligence agents killed Hamas' chief bomb maker Yahya Ayyash by implanting explosives in his cellphone and detonating it during a call.
As post-Snowden leaks have shown, it's perfectly easy for governments to intercept technology purchases and add software or whatever else they like. But to do this on such a large scale indicates an unprecedented intelligence coup.
Hezbollah has been launching attacks on Lebanon's neighbor Israel with Hamas ever since the latter terror group staged an assault on Israel last year. Describing today's pager explosions as its biggest security breach yet, Hezbollah vowed to punish Israel for the incursion.
The Israeli Defense Forces had no response at the time of publication. ®
Editor's note: This article was updated soon after publication on September 17 in light of more details coming in of those killed and injured.