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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

#541

Post by mschuster91 »

codedokode wrote: post #358
mschuster91 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary reason why Israel is widely considered an ally is their extensive intel network across Arabia and possibly half of Africa. No one matches the Mossad and the semi-private private intel industry of Israel in terms of capabilities. Another reason is that Israel is a relatively stable, Western aligned democracy in a sea of dictatorships, kingdoms, fiefdoms and failed states... which are all organized in OPEC.…

But OPEC is not a military organization. It is just minor countries trying to agree on a fair and just price of oil.

> It is just minor countries trying to agree on a fair and just price of oil.

Well, and that power can be abused as well, particularly for a military that relies on fossil fuels as extensively as the US. Additionally, there's not just the "classic" way of fighting wars (i.e. shooting stuff and blowing up stuff), but there's also economic warfare - and hiking the price of a vital good in war is an extremely effective weapon.

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

#543

Post by edanm »

113 wrote: post #526
pdabbadabba wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it should not be considered terrorism to the extent that the attack targeted legitimate military targets during a time of war — broadly speaking, combatants and other parts of the organization that affect its ability to wage war. Terrorism, at least least in my view, is an attack that either intentionally targets civilians or is truly indiscriminate, and is aimed at producing political cha age by causing fear…

> legitimate military targets during a time of war Israel and Lebanon are not at war.

But Israel and Hezbollah are at war, and these are (reportedly) devices used by Hezbollah operatives.

A war Hezbollah declared, btw.

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

#544

Post by rozap »

trallnag wrote: post #322
hdivider wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except not in NATO, Five Eyes, or even a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In real terms, they're definitely among the more problematic allies. Compared with Germany, UK, France, Australia, Canada, etc.

This is a blatant lie. For example, as part of operation Rubikon Germany and the US spied on Spain, a NATO ally, among other targets. It's commonplace to spy on each other.

Nothing they said was a lie though. Yes, everyone spies on each other, but what matters is the level of aggression. Israel ranks up there with China and Russia, and that's an issue.

And it's absolutely true that they did not sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty, and then went on to do nuclear tests off the coast of South Africa in the 1979 Vela incident. And that provided a huge motivation for Israel's enemies (which are absolutely anti-US) to seek nuclear weapons, which caused huge regional instability since then and threatened US national security.

Yes, you can talk about how it's hypocritical that the US gets to do these things and nobody else does. And in a sense it is, but the fact is that at the moment, the US effectively rules the world for better or worse. And it is a fact that Israel's behavior is causing instability that threatens themselves and the US.

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

#545

Post by mardifoufs »

atemerev wrote: post #357
mardifoufs wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean regardless of which side you're on, you still wouldn't want to end up with a product that has a bomb in it by accident, even if it wasn't targeted against you.

[flagged]

Yeah, I'm sure that Israel is just so good that every single device didn't end up being owned by any one else.

I mean Israel is really really good at avoiding collateral damage (according to Israel), so everyone who's on the receiving end of this was Hezbollah (according to Mossad). I mean, they do have the most humanitarian army in the world after all (according to the IDF casualty reports)

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

#546

Post by bawolff »

y-curious wrote: post #506
bawolff wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were those people targeted or only the hezbollah military wing? So far it seems like there isn't much specific info out there on this point.

No info, yet. Still curious how they went from supply chain to the end targets. It's not like Hezbollah leaders met with a guy in a trenchcoat and were told "only hand this out to your top guys, these pagers/walkies are really good!"

Its not out of the realm of possibility something like that happened. In other countries, organized crime have been taken down using tactics somewhat like that (i.e. convince the person responsible for procurement in the gang to buy bulk cell phones from some black market dealer that was actually a cop and put listening devices in the phones)

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

#547

Post by goldcd »

moffkalast wrote: post #240
knlam wrote: post #124

In the other thread, HN said Israel can only pull this trick only once and they just did it the second time

Tomorrow: "Hezbollah laptops explode across Lebanon, sources say"

That's got to be a reason why the attacks are staggered.

Separating them definitely increased the chances that somebody would check their radios - but taking out the pagers drove people to the radios. Now taking out the radios is making people worry what else might be compromised. Your enemy refusing to use their communication equipment is a definite win.

The pagers and radios were supposedly due to the worry that the phone system was compromised - but I'm guessing more people will be using it tomorrow.

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

#548

Post by deadlydose »

Larrikin wrote: post #521
borski wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in NYC and definitely learned about Tulsa.

You are in the minority. Huge chunks of society were surprised by the Watchmen episode. My AP US History introduced the civil war section by saying despite his personal beliefs, he was teaching us to pass the exam and any discussion about the war being over slavery and not state's rights was a waste of class time as that would not get us a four or five on the test.

Include me in that minority as well. I grew up in a small rural town and the massacre was covered in our history books. This was in HS in the mid 90s.

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

#549

Post by goldcd »

gruez wrote: post #57
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that they were extremely well concealed, and would have been difficult to detect with simple internal visual inspection.

>My understanding is that they were extremely well concealed Source? I'm not sure how you can concealed any meaningful amount of PCB/explosive in a pager/radio, unless you're hoping that your target never opens the plastic casing, or doesn't know what the internals are supposed to look like.

You know what a LiPo pouch looks like right? silvery bag, some yellow tape at the end with some wires sticking out.

Less likely you know what they look like inside, as it's been drilled into us not to pierce the things. Also if your laptop battery only lasts a couple of hours you might suspect something is wrong. If your pager needs recharging every month instead of every 2 months... well nobody has a clue how often a pager should need recharging.

I've no idea if it was the battery, but just feels like the right approach.

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

#550

Post by runarberg »

jnwatson wrote: post #371
JohnMakin wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

As attacks go, this is far more targeted than most dropped bombs. The purpose is to disable the communication infrastructure. That's a valid military target. To be clear, I'm not saying this is a good thing. It does seem to fit within the rules of war though.

The rules of war prohibit planting explosive in objects which are likely to be picked up by civilians. The rules of war also discourages fighting in civilian areas. Members of an enemy organization are not automatically valid military targets according to the rules of war. Especially when they are just going about their civilian lives far away from the battlefield.

This is attack consistent with terrorist tactics, not warfare.

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