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Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

reuters.com

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

#481

Post by ineedasername »

frankie_t wrote: post #267
mmastrac wrote: post #116

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…

Do we know the percentage of the total devices used by Hezbollah that got attacked? I guess even if all of them were destroyed, it hardly does any dismantling. But I would expect this operation to open a window of possibility to do some other actions.

Independent estimates peg Hezbollah membership in Lebanon to a wide range, 20k to 50k. Reporting says the pager shipment was 5000 units and so far ~3000 known targets. Figure some devices broke, hadn't been activated yet, didn't trigger correctly, etc. Figure not every member needed or had a pager, call it 50% to be safe but it might be reasonable to think only the equivalent of a team leader would have one. Either way this is a significant fraction of their contact capabilities.

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

#482

Post by PeterisP »

tsimionescu wrote: post #338
tptacek wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under International Humanitarian Law it absolutely does make it OK if the owner of the phone is a militant. This is black letter Law of Armed Combat.

Attacking millitatns while they are in the middle of civilians, especially when they are not doing that as part of some hostage/human shield operation, is not OK.

The existing conventions do not prohibit attacking militants while they are in the middle of civilians, even if they are not doing that as part of some hostage/human shield operation. It may be considered morally not ok, but doing so does not violate any obligation.

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

#483

Post by qubitcoder »

Zironic wrote: post #356
steventhedev wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine the EU is far more interested in an EU flagged company doing business with Hezbollah who are a designated terrorist organization and subject to sanctions. If there's one thing you learn quick in fintech - it's you absolutely do not fuck with sanctions.

If it was a real company that would be the case. However from what I've read the journalists looking into BAC Consulting has found it to be a company in name only with no actual offices or hungarian employees. It makes me slightly curious which company Israel convinced to actually produce these pagers and radios.

From the BBC [1].

BBC Verify has accessed BAC’s company records, which reveal it was first incorporated in 2022 and has a single shareholder. It is registered to a building in Budapest's 14th district.

As well as BAC, a further 13 companies and one person are registered at the same building.

However, our search of a financial information database does not reveal that BAC has any connections to other companies or people.

The same database shows no trading information about BAC. For example, there are no records of any shipments between it and any other firms.

However, BAC's website, which is now inaccessible, previously said it was scaling up its business in Asia, and had a goal to "develop international technology co-operation among countries for the sale of telecommunication products".

The website listed one person as BAC’s chief executive and founder - Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono - and does not appear to mention other employees.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cew12r5qe1ro

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

#485

Post by ivan_gammel »

ineedasername wrote: post #455
ivan_gammel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t look very surgical to me given the civilian casualties and general disregard of what can happen to innocent people. If anything this looks more like a state-sponsored terrorist attack than covert ops with collateral damage.

Actual combat and conventional attacks on a guerilla force embedded in an urban civilian population is far more catastrophic and less surgical than the risk of being inside the ~0.5m lethal radius of these pagers. It's a horrific attack with awful innocent deaths at the same time that any conventional attack that achieved the same impact on Hezbollah would have been even worse for those around them.

[flagged]

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

#486

Post by numpad0 »

stetrain wrote: post #226
Arch485 wrote: post #192

I'm genuinely curious: how is this not considered terrorism on Israel's part? (or is it considered terrorism?) From a tactical standpoint, this is very similar, and the only big difference I see is that this is technologically more advanced/more complex than just planting a bomb or something. If it's not terrorism, what is the differentiating factor(s)? *side note: I'm quite sure other western countries have used tac…

The definition of terrorism is controversial and political, so there isn't a hard answer. But I think a general distinction is the targeting of combatants vs civilians. There is a difference between infiltrating military or para-military organizations or operations and intentionally targeting mass casualties of civilians for attention.

The entire US is going to freak out if a platoon of KGB soldiers flew into US and killed hundreds of bad guys. How objectively bad the "victims" might have been isn't going to matter.

You can't just walk across a recognized international border and do the "right" thing without a consent, regardless of how right or wrong it had been. That's an act of war, technically.

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

#487

Post by mrtksn »

xenospn wrote: post #439
mrtksn wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well poisoning is an antisemitic talking point, its used as an excuse to target Jewish people by claiming that Jews are secretly poisoning the well from who their people during water.

I’ve never heard that phrase before. Did you come up with it?

Obviously, otherwise you would have heard of it.

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

#488

Post by pdabbadabba »

Daviey wrote: post #422
varjag wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no law or custom of war that prohibits fighting in urban areas.

Except, Rule 15:\ “In the conduct of military operations, constant care must be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects. All feasible precautions must be taken to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”* *Provisions common to the territories of the Parties to the conflict and to occupied territories - Ar…

You've posted several paragraphs. It would be helpful if you'd identify the part of this you think Israel has violated, because I see none.

Broadly speaking, the Geneva Convention calls for the use of "all feasible precautions" to be taken in protecting civilians, but does not require perfection in doing so. In the context of a world where wars are normally fought with missiles and bombs, I would have thought that Israel's decision to instead target Hezbollah via tiny explosives hidden in devices known to be sold to Hezbollah members would be an extreme way of complying with this rule. If not even this is good enough, how else would you advise a nation to defend itself without violating this principle? Surely any use of conventional weaponry must also be out of the question.

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

#489

Post by secstate »

minkles wrote: post #417
lupusreal wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely does not. The violence will continue with both sides dishing it out and feeling completely justified in doing so because of what was previously done to them.

So what's your solution then? Incidentally it does work. It's just horrible. Nagasaki / Hiroshima are a fine example of forced capitulation. Now I'm not suggesting nuking anyone but the best way this ends, with the lowest future body count is someone wins decisively at this point.

Correction, the best way this ends now is that Bibi lives to a nice old age and dies of natural causes and not in prison. This is not the Empire of Japan. This is a poorly funded proxy war being kept just below a boil so certain members of Israel's political class are not found to be criminals.

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

#490

Post by meepmorp »

olalonde wrote: post #212
mmastrac wrote: post #116

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…

> This will certainly be made into a blockbuster movie in ten years. If this didn't happen in real life, I would think that the scenario was too far-fetched and unrealistic. That's some seriously impressive attack.

Unlike reality, fiction needs to be believable.
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