AFPAfter hundreds of pagers and radio units exploded in two separate incidents in Lebanon – injuring hundreds of individuals and killing a minimum of 37 – particulars are nonetheless being pieced collectively as to how such an operation was carried out.
Lebanon and Hezbollah, whose members and communication techniques had been focused, have blamed Israel – although Israel is but to remark.
The BBC has adopted a path from Taiwan, to Japan, Hungary, Israel and again to Lebanon.
Listed here are the unanswered questions.
How had been the pagers compromised?
Some early hypothesis urged that the pagers may have been focused by a fancy hack that induced them to blow up. However that concept was shortly dismissed by specialists.
To trigger injury on the dimensions that they did, it’s possible they had been rigged with explosives earlier than they entered Hezbollah’s possession, specialists say.
Pictures of the damaged stays of the pagers present the emblem of a small Taiwanese electronics producer: Gold Apollo.
The BBC visited the corporate’s workplaces, located on a big enterprise park in a nondescript suburb of Taipei.
The corporate’s founder, Hsu Ching-Kuang, appeared shocked. He denied the enterprise had something to do with the operation.
“You look at the pictures from Lebanon,” he informed reporters outdoors his agency’s workplaces. “They don’t have any mark saying Made in Taiwan on them, we did not make those pagers!”
Instead – he pointed to a Hungarian company: BAC Consulting.
Mr Hsu said that three years ago he had licensed Gold Apollo’s trademark to BAC, allowing them to use Gold Apollo’s name on their own pagers.
He said the money transfers from BAC had been “very unusual” – and that there had been problems with the payments, which had come from the Middle East.
What did a Hungarian company have to do with it?
The BBC went to the registered office of BAC Consulting, situated in a residential area of the Hungarian capital, Budapest.
The address appeared to be shared by 12 other companies – and no-one in the building could tell us anything about BAC Consulting at all.
Officials in Hungary say the firm, which was first incorporated in 2022, was merely a “trading intermediary with no manufacturing or operational site” in the country.
A brochure for BAC, published on LinkedIn, lists eight organisations it claims to have worked with – including the UK Department for International Development (DfID).
The UK Foreign Office – which has taken on DfID’s responsibilities – told the BBC it was in the process of investigating. But based on initial conversations, it said it did not have any involvement with BAC.
BAC’s website listed one person as its chief executive and founder – Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono.
The BBC made several attempts to contact Ms Bársony-Arcidiacono, but were unable to reach her.
However, she did reportedly speak to NBC News, saying: “I don’t make the pagers. I’m simply the intermediate.”
So who is admittedly behind BAC Consulting?
The New York Occasions has reported that the corporate was in actual fact a entrance for Israeli intelligence.
The newspaper, citing three Israeli officers, mentioned that two different shell corporations had been created to assist disguise the identities of the individuals who had been actually producing the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.
The BBC has not been capable of independently confirm these studies – however we do know that Bulgarian authorities have now begun investigating one other firm linked to BAC.
Bulgarian broadcaster bTV reported on Thursday that 1.6 million euros ($1.8m; £1.3m) related to the system assaults in Lebanon handed by means of Bulgaria and was later despatched to Hungary.
How had been the radio units compromised?
The origins of the radio units, which exploded within the second wave of assaults, are much less clear.
We all know that a minimum of a few of people who exploded had been the IC-V82 mannequin produced by the Japanese firm, ICOM.
These units had been bought by Hezbollah 5 months in the past, in accordance with a safety supply chatting with Reuters information company.
Earlier, a gross sales govt on the US subsidiary of Icom informed the Related Press information company that the exploded radio units in Lebanon seemed to be knockoff merchandise that weren’t made by the corporate – including that it was simple to search out counterfeit variations on-line.
It took the BBC a matter of seconds to search out Icom IC-V82s listed on the market in on-line marketplaces.
ICOM mentioned in a press release it had stopped manufacturing and promoting the mannequin virtually a decade in the past, in October 2014 – and mentioned it had additionally discontinued manufacturing of the batteries wanted to function it.
The corporate mentioned it doesn’t outsource manufacturing abroad – and all its radios are produced at a manufacturing facility in Western Japan.
In accordance with Kyodo information company, Icom director Yoshiki Enomoyo urged that pictures of the injury across the battery compartment of the exploded walkie-talkies counsel they might have been retrofitted with explosives.
How had been the units detonated?
Movies present victims reaching into their pockets within the seconds earlier than the units detonated, inflicting chaos in streets, retailers and houses throughout the nation.
Lebanese authorities have concluded that the units had been detonated by “electronic messages” despatched to them, in accordance with a letter by the Lebanese mission to the UN, seen by Reuters information company.
Citing US officers, the New York Occasions mentioned that the pagers acquired messages that seemed to be coming from Hezbollah’s management earlier than detonating. The messages as an alternative appeared to set off the units, the outlet reported.
We don’t but know what sort of message was despatched to the radio units.
Produce other units been sabotaged?
That is the query many in Lebanon are actually asking – paranoid that different units, cameras, telephones or laptops may have additionally been rigged with explosives.
The Lebanese Military has been on the streets of Beirut utilizing a remote-controlled bomb disposal robotic to hold out managed explosions.
BBC crews in Lebanon have been stopped and informed to not use their telephones or cameras.
“Everyone is just panicking… We don’t know if we can stay next to our laptops, our phones. Everything seems like a danger at this point, and no-one knows what to do,” one woman, Ghida, told a BBC correspondent.
Why did the attack happen now?
There are several theories as to why the devices were triggered to explode this week.
One is that Israel chose this moment to send a devastating message to Hezbollah, following almost a year of escalating cross-border hostilities after Hezbollah fired rockets at or around northern Israel a day after the Hamas attack of 7 October.
The other is that Israel did not intend to put its plan in motion at this moment, but was forced to after fearing the plot was about to be exposed.
According to US outlet Axios, the original plan was for the pager attack to be the opening salvo of an all-out war as a way to try to cripple Hezbollah’s fighters.
However, it says, after Israel discovered that Hezbollah had grow to be suspicious, it selected to hold out the assault early.
