Exploding pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon in the last week of September 2024 reminds me of transistor bombs that went off in buses in Delhi and adjoining areas of UP and Haryana in May 1985 killing 49 people and injuring 127 in Delhi alone. However, there are two major differences, i) exploding devices in Lebanon were not intended to kill but to maim, confuse, and disrupt the communication network of a well-trained force of Hezbollah operatives whom Israel is fighting on its northern border, any deaths are incidental. In contrast, the Delhi bombings were to kill as many common commuters as possible by the Khalistani sympathizers to pursue their separatist agenda, and ii) the pager attack is one the greatest covert operations in history, if not the greatest, involving advanced electronic warfare and cyber capabilities; Delhi incident was a crude attempt to use an explosive mixture of commonly available picric acid and ammonium nitrate in addition to dry batteries. Both these chemical compounds have applications in dyeing textiles, staining materials, production of matches, electric batteries, sensitizers in photographic emulsions, fertilizers, and even antibiotics.
There is nothing conclusive yet on the modes operandi of this attack but the magnitude of the damage from the exploding pagers indicates something more powerful than mere lithium batteries. Technically speaking this can be found out by the analysis of any residue from the exploded pagers to determine the nature of the explosive used and possibly the origin. To execute such a targeted and focused attack a high level of precision, intelligence, technological expertise, and perfect coordination is required. From the information available in media and other public domains, two pre-requisite conditions for such an attack are speculated: i) physical tampering of these electronic devices before delivering them to the end-users; this requires a high level of covert operations but is in the realm of possibility to infiltrate Hezbollah’s supply chain and plant tiny explosive devices that can be remotely triggered or set to detonate upon receiving specific signal or frequency and ii) hacking communication networks to install malware or triggered specific vulnerabilities in the software for remote activation of certain components like battery or circuitry.
Though the Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the attack as Israeli aggression, the Israeli government has declined to comment on these low-tech gadgets attack. Knowing Israel’s technological prowess and operational tactics it is not very difficult for them to execute such an innovative attack. Israeli intelligence has a long history of using creative and advanced methods to target enemy equipment, personnel, and outstation locations. Even today, the whodunnit mystery of the famed 2007 Stuxnet computer virus that stymied Iran’s nuclear-fuel enrichment program fascinates tech enthusiasts, journalists, and readers who love thriller stories. The Stuxnet is a 500-kilobyte computer worm that infected the software at 14 industrial sites in Iran, including a uranium enrichment plant, though Iran did not confirm that Stuxnet destroyed some of its centrifuges. While a computer virus relies on an unwitting victim to install it, a worm is more dangerous as it spreads on its own over a computer network. According to a report in the IEEE journal the developers of Stuxnet, though not officially identified so far, look to be the handiwork of a nation-state-sponsored project. Based on the size and sophistication of the worm and leaks to the press from the officials in the USA and Israel experts traces its alleged ownership to the intelligence agencies of these two countries to cripple Iran’s nuclear-fuel enrichment program.
Such highly focused attacks to maim and not to kill using low-tech gadgets with high-level precision and technological expertise will certainly have a great psychological impact on the rank and file of Hezbollah operatives. For a long, they have been fighting with Israel using missiles and rockets resulting in several deaths. After these attacks, they may lose any notion of personal safety in their normal routine life. Outfits like Hezbollah and Hamas now will live in fear of their electronic devices being tampered with. Their worry will be to find alternative modes of communication as no modern communications devices they can depend on. As the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers demonized the simple box knife, someone has now demonized the simple pager and walkie-talkie. Knives were banned on airlines after 9/11, otherwise, it was common to buy a tourist penknife in the airport gift shop or duty-free kitchen knives. A group of terrorists with box-cutter knives ended that all. People talk of AI and its impact on our future generations as they will have to live in constant fear of its misuse and negative impact. But, it appears that after all you don’t need a lot of fancy technology to scare people anymore. To end on a lighter note, maybe we should go back to paper and pencil as a new and reliable communication method.
