Explosive pagers, the new weapon in the conflict between Lebanon and Israel

1 October 2024 7 minutes Author: Cyber Witcher

Learn how the terrorist organization Hezbollah uses explosive pagers to attack Israeli military forces. Analysis of new technologies in the conflict zone between Israel and Lebanon.

A new tool of terror

Dozens of people have been killed and thousands injured after two relentless days of bombings swept across Lebanon this week, with the Shiite militant group Hezbollah blaming Israel for the attacks.

Hezbollah members used explosive pagers that detonated simultaneously on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 12 people, including two children.

On Wednesday, another wave of coordinated portable radio explosions took place, killing at least 25 people. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, almost 3,000 people were injured during these attacks.

Israel has not commented on the attack, but the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a video after the blasts that Israel has “much more capabilities” that could be used against Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has vowed brutal retaliation for serious security breaches, with the group’s leader declaring that the attacks “can be considered war crimes or a declaration of war.”

Geolocation of explosions on Tuesday

Footage of the deadly explosions and their aftermath was verified and geolocated this week. Some of them took place in Haret Hreik, a well-known Hezbollah stronghold south of Beirut.

Footage and images posted on social media show devices exploding in people’s hands or on people’s hips. In one video taken from surveillance cameras at a grocery store, a man with a bag slung across his body stands at a grocery stand next to three other people.

 

The man’s knapsack seems to explode and he falls to the ground as the people around him flee. The man’s bag, which can be seen at the end of the video, has visible damage, the bottom part is missing and the contents are on the floor. Bellingcat geolocated the footage to Yahay’s Supermarket in Haret Hreik (33.854741, 35.501362).

Top left: Video of a pager explosion at a supermarket in Beirut on September 17. The tile pattern on the floor in the footage matched that of a vegetable supermarket in Hareth Hreik.

According to Reuters, the explosions began around 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday and lasted for about an hour. A timestamp on the grocery store video confirms this information, with the footage showing that the detonation in the man’s bag occurred at 3:30 p.m.

Numerous videos posted on the network capture the moment of the explosions and their consequences. Some videos show bloodied victims without fingers or with severe injuries to their arms, face and thighs.

Other videos show hospital wards in Beirut overflowing with people reportedly brought in with injuries from pagers. We have geolocated one of these videos to Bachman Hospital (33.853555, 35.506011), also located in the Haret Hreik district.

Above: Screenshots of a video showing more than a dozen people injured in the hospital and reportedly injured in the Sept. 17 pager attack

What we know about pagers

Two images posted on Platform X clearly show the remains of the pagers that exploded on Tuesday. The details in both photos allow us to identify the exact models of the pagers, although it is possible that other variants were used.

The photo partially shows the back of the pager with the inscriptions “Distri”, “Model” and “Freq”. A partial barcode is also present. After “Distri” comes the word “GOLD” and after “Model” you can see part of the letters “AR” and possibly the number nine. In one image, after “Freq” is the number four.

Annotated image of pagers apparently used in Tuesday’s attack.

These marks indicate that the pagers likely belonged to the reliable Gold Apollo AR-924 model. Gold Apollo is a Taiwanese company specializing in the production of wireless paging systems.

In a statement released on September 18, Gold Apollo said the pagers that exploded were not made in Taiwan. The company spoke of a long-term partnership with BAC Consulting, a Hungarian firm that was awarded a contract to use its brand. “This model is manufactured and sold by BAC,” Gold Apollo noted.

BAC Consulting, in turn, denies any involvement, and its CEO, Christiana Barsohn-Arcidiacono, told NBC News: “I don’t make pagers. I am only an intermediary. I think you are mistaken.”

A Hungarian government spokesman confirmed that BAC Consulting is a “commercial intermediary” and has no manufacturing or operational bases in the country.

The New York Times, citing three intelligence officers, reported that the Budapest company was part of an Israeli front. According to them, the pagers were tampered with before reaching Lebanon.

Profile related to BAC Consulting

Content posted on social media by the CEO of BAC Consulting was discovered naming a second person apparently associated with the company. However, the person could not be reached, and attempts to research his resume were unsuccessful.

Barsony-Arcidiacono uploaded to her LinkedIn page a PDF file dated October 22, 2020, with a brief biography of “Eric Hansen,” who is described as a business development manager at a consulting firm.

 

Знімок екрана документа, завантаженого Barsony-Arcidiacono на LinkedIn, який стосується участі Еріка Гансена в BAC Consulting

However, the text appears to have been copied almost directly from a web page published two years earlier that describes a different Eric (spelled as ak) who works for a different company and is based in Miami, Florida.

The PDF file preceded the registration of BAC Consulting in the Register of Enterprises of Hungary, which took place on May 19, 2022. Additionally, Bellingcat found no reference to Eric Hansen in BAC Consulting’s publicly available business registration records.

Eric Hansen’s LinkedIn profile says he has worked for BAC Consulting in a “business development” role since April 2020, two years before the company was incorporated. The profile, which has no photos, says Hansen lives in Denmark.

A screenshot of Eric Hansen’s LinkedIn profile.

Notably, some of the companies listed in Hansen’s profile probably don’t exist. For example, LinkedIn lists Hansen as having worked for PDC Consultancy since 2014.

PDC Consultancy’s LinkedIn page describes it as a “well-known investment and consulting firm” operating since 2011 and based in Copenhagen, Denmark. However, there is no such entry in the Central Business Register of Denmark. The website link is to another organization, PDConsult, which deals in farming and real estate in Nigeria.

Hansen, listed as a partner, is the only person associated with PDC Consultancy on LinkedIn.

Another position on Hansen’s profile is Program Manager at Jason Business Group from 2009 to 2011. This listing does not have a LinkedIn company page and is not registered in the Danish or Hungarian business registers. Search for the name Jason Business Group did not return any results.

Hansen’s profile states that he previously worked for HSBC and Deloitte, but no public links have been found between him and those companies. The company did not provide comments.

It also states that Erik Hansen earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Copenhagen Business School. More than 600 abstracts were published in 2011, but none of them correspond to this name. A search in student theses did not yield results. CBS did not immediately respond to a phone call.

Inquiries to Eric Hansen’s LinkedIn profile have not been answered. No other verified LinkedIn social media profiles were found. Eric Hansen’s profile, as mentioned in a post by the CEO of BAC Consulting, raises further questions about the Hungarian company.

The information is taken from Bellingcat’s open sources

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