Gold Apollo pagers are displayed at the company's headquarters - Photo: REUTERS
According to the New York Times , some informed US officials confirmed that the pagers of Hezbollah members that exploded on September 17 were ordered by the organization from Gold Apollo Company (Taiwan).
Taiwanese branded pager explodes
The machines were tampered with by implanting explosives and remote detonators next to the batteries. The explosives used weighed only 28 to 56 grams. The timing of the tampering was certainly before they were imported into Lebanon.
A senior Lebanese official confirmed that the devices were tampered with "at the production stage" by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
"Mossad has implanted circuit boards containing explosives inside the devices. It is very difficult to detect them by any means, including with specialized equipment or scanners," the official said.
The exact number of affected pagers is unclear. U.S. officials say Hezbollah has ordered more than 3,000 Gold Apollo pagers so far. Meanwhile, sources inside Lebanon say the number of pagers imported into the country could be as high as 5,000.
Most of it was distributed to Hezbollah members operating across Lebanon. Some of the rest was sent to the group's allies in Iran and Syria.
There have been no reports of pagers exploding outside Lebanon.
At around 3:30 p.m. on September 17, the explosive device was activated. Initially, the pagers announced that they had received a message from Hezbollah leaders. However, shortly after, they suddenly exploded.
Lebanon's health minister said at least 11 people have died and more than 2,700 have been injured so far.
Immediately after the incident, Hezbollah claimed that the attack was masterminded by Israel. Tel Aviv has not yet made an official response to the above accusations.
Gold Apollo claims no involvement
Mr. Hsu Ching Kuang, founder of Gold Apollo - Photo: REUTERS
On September 18, Gold Apollo Company founder Hsu Ching Kuang confirmed that the pagers that exploded were not manufactured by this company.
Mr. Hsu said the above equipment was manufactured by a company in Europe authorized by Gold Apollo to use the company's brand.
"Those products are not ours. They just have our brand identity printed on them. Gold Apollo is also a victim of this incident. We are a responsible company. This is a very shameful incident," said the founder of Gold Apollo.
Also on the morning of September 18, Taiwan's economic agency announced that the batteries used in the pagers were ordinary AA batteries and there was no documentary evidence or documents showing that Gold Apollo exported the pagers directly to Lebanon.
The agency confirmed that Gold Apollo assessed that the explosive pagers had been tampered with after leaving the warehouse.
The authenticity of the above statements by Lebanese officials, Gold Apollo representatives and Taiwanese officials is currently unknown.
"The battery can't explode that hard"
The New York Times quoted many independent experts as saying that the scale of the explosions showed that they were certainly caused by some type of explosive device.
"It is likely that the pagers were tampered with to explode. The size and intensity of the explosions suggest that they could not have been caused by a simple battery explosion," said Mikko Hypponen, a cybercrime adviser to Europol.
Ms. Keren Elazari, a cybersecurity researcher at Tel Aviv University (Israel), affirmed that the pager attacks hit Hezbollah's fatal weakness.
"They hit Hezbollah's Achilles heel by targeting its key communications. We've seen many cases of devices like pagers being compromised, but we've never seen such a sophisticated attack," Elazari said.
In early 2024, Hezbollah switched to using pagers instead of smartphones to communicate due to concerns that high-tech devices could be attacked, taken over or tracked by the Israeli military.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/3-000-may-nhan-tin-phat-no-cua-hezbollah-duoc-dat-hang-tu-dai-loan-20240918102726664.htm
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