“It was clearly a premeditated IED attack,” said Jerry Back, a fire investigator and senior engineer at Jensen Hughes. “The fact that multiple explosions occurred at the same time suggests that small explosive devices were built into the equipment, which means that the manufacturing process was tampered with.”
The affected pagers were part of a recent shipment to Hezbollah. Some witnesses said they noticed the devices heating up before they exploded.
Sky News Arabia 's anonymous source said Mossad (Israeli intelligence) intercepted the communications equipment, stuffed the powerful plastic explosive Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN) commonly used for military purposes and destroyed it inside the machine, before the shipment reached the enemy.
“PETN explosive is attached to the battery and detonates by increasing the temperature,” the source said.
Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic Studies, confirmed that Sky News Arabia 's information was correct. "It appears that the equipment supply chain has been compromised."
The explosions in Lebanon and Syria are reminiscent of the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used by militants and terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Basically, the cell phones turn into explosive devices after being attached to other explosives, such as C4,” Back said. “The militants often place the phones along the road, and when a military convoy passes by, they call and detonate them.”
It is still unclear what exact mechanism caused the pagers to overheat and explode, but the chances of a lithium battery spontaneously exploding are about one in ten million.
(According to NYT, Bloomberg)
Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/may-nhan-tin-cua-hezbollah-bi-kich-no-hang-loat-2323316.html
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