Lebanese Hezbollah Shares Pagers Hours Before The Simultaneous Explosion

Hezbollah/PHOTO via Wikimedia Commons/khamenei.ir

JAKARTA - Lebanese Hezbollah distributed a new Gold Apollo pager to its members hours before the simultaneous explosion.

Hezbollah received a new pager on Monday, September 16, which exploded the next day while still in his box.

"The Pager given to senior members a few days earlier injured a subordinate when it exploded," said a source in an exclusive Reuters report, Friday, September 20.

In a coordinated attack, the Gold Apollo branded device was detonated on Tuesday, September 17 in all of Hezbollah's strongholds in southern Lebanon, the outskirts of Beirut, and the east Bekaa valley.

On Wednesday, September 18, hundreds of Hezbollah walkie-talkies exploded. The successive attack killed 37 people, including two children, and injured more than 3,000 people.

The walkie-talkie battery is mixed with an extremely explosive compound known as PETN.

Three grams of explosives hidden on the pager were not detected for months by Hezbollah.

One of the security sources said it was very difficult to detect explosives with any device or scanner. The source did not specify what type of scanner Hezbollah used to run the pager.

Lebanon and Hezbollah said Israel was behind the attack. Israel's secret military intelligence unit 8200 was involved in the planning.

Israel, which has since stepped up airstrikes on Lebanon, has neither denied nor confirmed its involvement.

Instead of suspecting the presence of a pager, the examination is part of a routine "twisting" of its equipment, including communication devices, to find indications that the equipment contains explosives or a monitoring mechanism, said one of the security sources.

The attacks, and the distribution of these equipment despite routine sweeping and inspections, damaged Hezbollah's reputation as the umbrella of Iran's allied 'Poros' which is the umbrella of irregular anti-Israeli forces throughout the Middle East.

In a televised address on Thursday, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasollah said the attack had "unprecedented" in the group's history.

Taiwan-based Gold Apollo said it did not produce the device used in the attack. Gold Apollo said the device was made by companies in Europe that have permits to use the company's brand.

A total of 5,000 pagers were brought to Lebanon earlier this year. Reuters previously reported Hezbollah turned to pagers in an effort to avoid Israeli surveillance of its cell phones, following the killing of senior commanders in targeted airstrikes over the past year.