It is not yet fully known how exactly the pagers were made to explode
New Delhi:
Hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon today, killing eight people and wounding Tehran’s ambassador in Beirut in blasts the Iran-backed militant group blamed on Israel. There was no comment from the Israeli military.
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Hezbollah has been using a private, fixed-line telecommunications network dating back to the early 2000s, news agency Reuters reported on July 9.
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The use of pagers appears to be an extension of this method of keeping communications to the most basic to avoid being intercepted and tracked.
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It is not yet fully known how exactly the pagers were made to explode. Some experts on social media said they suspect Israeli intelligence operatives may have intercepted a large order of pagers by the Hezbollah, and either rigged them with small plastic explosives or replaced the pagers with similar looking models but which are actually mini bombs.
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Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had previously warned the group’s members not to carry cellphones, saying that they could be used by Israel to track their movements and to carry out targeted strikes.
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Israel’s electronic eavesdropping – including hacking into cell phones and computers – is also widely regarded as among the world’s most sophisticated.