Hamas and Hezbollah: Mass Casualties From… Pagers?

Editor’s Note: this is a developing story and may be updated after publication when further details become available.

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In something straight out of a James Bond movie, thousands of operatives from the Hezbollah terrorist operatives, as well as some of their Iranian supporters, have fallen victim to a covert operation involving exploding pagers.

It is unclear at this time if the synchronized explosions were the result of some type of triggered malware or if they contained a small amount of explosives. Nor is any organization formally taking responsibility for what appears to be a complex and stunningly effective tactic. But much of the world is pointing the finger at Israel, which possesses both the means and the opportunity to carry out this kind of operation.

Apparently the pagers were set to ring shortly before detonating, ensuring that the majority of them were in hands or near faces when they detonated. Even pagers that were not immediately grabbed were probably in pockets or on nightstands, where they could be quickly reached. Of course that also meant that sensitive body parts were within range of the explosion.

So, how effective were these attacks? Initial reporting indicates a fairly low death toll of perhaps a dozen, which is sure to climb. But the number of combatants wounded by this tactic is staggering, numbering well into the thousands. So far Hezbollah and Hamas are reporting thousands of injuries to their fighters.

Given the ubiquity of the pagers within Hezbollah, it seems likely that they were provided by Iran, which openly supports the terrorist organization. In fact, a senior Iranian official in Lebanon was wounded by one of these devices, which leaves an obvious question: why were you communicating with terrorist organizations in the first place? Don’t bother, we already know the answer. Also in Lebanon, the son of a lawmaker was wounded in the attack, perhaps giving further evidence of how deeply Hezbollah has infiltrated that country’s government.

There are many reasons that this is a master stroke of intelligence tradecraft. To begin with, infiltrating the supply network like this is going to generate years of mistrust of technology by Hezbollah. They were probably using pagers in the first place because they know that smart technology is easy to block and easy to track. Pagers, being lower-tech, and generally thought of as more secure, but now they know they are at risk in just about any kind of communication. And if they resort to messengers or wired comms, they lost the ability to communicate quickly and at distance. This is yet another dilemma for them.

The complexity and the magnitude of the attack itself is pretty stunning, but is this a portent of something larger? A primary use of pagers has got to be for early warning. With the notification network down, might Israel be planning some type of larger offensive, one that might finally put an end to the conflict in Gaza, or set the stage for operations in Lebanon? Only time will tell.