media traces a pager supply chain from Taiwan to Hungary to Lebanon — including a three-month port layover during which explosives might have been placed in the devices.
Hundreds of pagers belonging to the armed group Hezbollah exploded on Tuesday in Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and wounding about 2,750. Some pagers belonging to Hezbollah also exploded in Syria, leading to some injuries.
Lebanon, Hezbollah and the group’s allies have all blamed Israel. But what really happened? Many analysts believe the answer might lie in how Hezbollah got the pagers in the first place — because that might hold clues to whether the devices were tampered with to facilitate the explosions.
Here’s what we know and what experts believe might have happened:
About 3:30pm (12:30 GMT), hundreds of pagers all over Lebanon started exploding.
Hezbollah released a statement on Tuesday saying two of its fighters and a girl were killed as “pagers belonging to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions exploded”.
The Iran-backed group attributed the pager blasts to Israel, which has been involved in tit-for-tat attacks with Hezbollah across the Lebanon-Israel border since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israel’s military has refused to comment on the explosions. Hezbollah has promised retaliation against Israel.
Some analysts, including Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army officer and chemical weapons expert, have speculated that the pagers may also have been tampered with along the supply chain and wired to explode on command.
But Brussels-based military and political analyst Elijah Magnier told media his sources close to the ground in Lebanon had shared details from initial investigations carried out by Hezbollah on pagers that did not explode.
Those investigations suggest that Israel placed 1 to 3 grammes (0.04 to 0.11oz) of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), a powerful explosive, in each device.
Lebanon faces a range of sanctions from the United States, European Union and their Western partners. In addition, the US, United Kingdom and their allies, such as Japan, list Hezbollah among “terrorist” organisations.
That means that companies both registered in these domains or trading with these countries are wary of direct transactions, especially in technology, with Hezbollah — and often with Lebanon at all.
What happened to the Hezbollah pagers in Lebanon?
In this case, Magnier said, the pagers procured by Hezbollah were with a third party and they sat at a port for three months, awaiting clearances, before they were finally moved to the Lebanese group.
Hezbollah suspects that it was during those three months that Israel managed to plant explosives in the devices, the military analyst said.
But where were the pagers made — and when?
The trademark of Taiwan pager manufacturer Gold Apollo has been identified on the remains of the exploded pagers, which appear to belong to the company’s AR-924 model.
On Wednesday, the company released a statement denying that it had manufactured Hezbollah’s pagers and saying it was only its logo that was on the devices.
Instead, the pagers had been built by a Hungarian company called BAC through a licensing deal, the Taiwan firm said.
“The design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC,” Gold Apollo said in a statement. “We only provide brand trademark authorisation and have no involvement in the design manufacturing of this product.” BAC has not commented so far.
The evidence so far suggests that Hezbollah acquired the pagers around February when the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, ordered members to stop using cellphones because they could be easily intercepted and monitored by Israeli intelligence.
BAC Consulting is based in Hungary’s capital, Budapest.
Reuters reported that the stated address for BAC is a peach-coloured building in a residential area. While the company’s name is posted there on an A4 sheet of paper, an anonymous source present at the building told the news agency the company does not have a physical presence at the building despite being registered there.
According to LinkedIn, BAC’s CEO is Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, whose profile says she has worked for various organisations, including UNESCO.
Her profile says: “We offer in-depth consulting guiding our client’s journey toward innovation, sustainability, and equity while ensuring connection, and authenticity. Our main services are business development, management consultancy, strategy and partnership planning.”
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