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Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

reuters.com

141–150 of 1001 posts

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#141
post #40

A second day! I can't believe the full up and down owning of the communications supply chain. Makes Hezbollah look like a clown show.

Thousands of civilians injured... very few Hezbollah dead. Makes Israel look like a terrorist organization, IMHO.

There has been no statement or indication that the thousands of people injured were comprised in any significant proportion of civilians. Given that these pagers-- reportedly 5000 of them-- were purchased by Hezbollah directly and videos of their explosions show a minimal blast radius it is premature and, depending on motives, propagandistic to claim that the thousands of people injured were civilians.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#142

I guess they are taking a victory lap around yesterday's major embarrassment. I never thought that you could dismantle a terrorist organization so surgically by just booby-trapping comms devices. This will certainly be made into a blockbuster movie in ten years. I'll re-iterate my previous comment on this matter: this is an impressive supply-chain hack with absolutely oversized results, and you gotta hand it to them…

Ten Years? Netflix is probably having a meeting about it tomorrow.

/s

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#143

I've seen photos posted on X and Telegram (of course I can't verify) of what look like Baofeng and Icom UHF hand-helds that have detonated. Not sure how they can get them to all blow up in unison--these aren't devices that can receive a digital message--as they apparently did at a funeral today.

If one can modify a device to incorporate an explosive, then it's surely possible to add another receiver of some kind too.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#144
The only way we'd find out how they did it is if some pagers didn't explode and at least one would get into the hands of someone willing to do a public tear-down.

In this video, we'll be cutting the explosive battery. Hit the like and subscribe buttons, and let us know what kind of explosive you think this is in the comments. Also, don't try this at home kids, we're what you'd call "professionals".

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X-Ray image compared to known X-Ray of the exact same model Bomb sniffing dog or chemical test of surfaces

Allegedly hidden well enough that a casual X-ray of the pager wouldn't have revealed it.

It might have looked like a normal pager under xray, but I bet it looked _different_ than an unmodified pager. Not suspicious on its own but suspicious because it was changed.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#146

I guess they are taking a victory lap around yesterday's major embarrassment. I never thought that you could dismantle a terrorist organization so surgically by just booby-trapping comms devices. This will certainly be made into a blockbuster movie in ten years. I'll re-iterate my previous comment on this matter: this is an impressive supply-chain hack with absolutely oversized results, and you gotta hand it to them…

It's not a victory lap; this operation by itself is one of the largest and most intricate operations Israeli intelligence has ever executed, and would have been planned months in advance. Repeating from elsewhere on the thread: the reporting is that this is happening now because Hezbollah was on the verge of discovering the operation. I think it's likely both sets of devices came from the same manufacturer or distrib…

I agree -- "victory lap" is just a figure of speech. Yesterday's results were probably far outsized impact on their own, and today's are (apologies for another figure of speech) "icing on the cake".

I would imagine that they've been feeding these booby-trapped devices to the supply chain for at least a few months and showing that multiple devices are potentially bombs is just an even more powerful psychological victory. What devices can they even trust now? Will they need to go back to sneakernet?

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrorism directed at terrorists…I’m in full support.

[flagged]

Yeah, that’s very easy to do. I don’t live in a deranged place filled with terrorists supported by a significant part of the population.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#149

I'll be curious about what details emerge concerning connections between the hand-held radios and the pagers. Any overlap in the manufacturers? Were the radios new/recently replaced like the pagers? How was the explosive triggered?

I assume it was the same factory, that made the explosive containing batteries.

And then those batteries "just" had to be swapped with the intercepted original ones. Still requires effort, but less than building pagers and walki talkies for this purpose.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#150

Remember the "end of history"? How times have changed.

The “End of history” was just a euphemism for western comfort and insulation from the rest of the world. A number of comments here can demonstrate that. There’s simply not enough proximity to death and destruction for these people to feel like it’s anything more than entertainment or an interesting topic of discussion.

The end of history will be over when we all recognize that this could just as easily be an operation against the Cartel or the Boogaloo Boys or whoever the fuck, with Feds blowing up pagers in a Whole Foods in LA instead of a market in Lebanon. Oh, but that could never happen here.

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