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ISRAEL’S pager blitz has sparked fears that bombs could be snuck into everyday gadgets.
Thousands were injured and dozens were killed by Mossad agents after they twice surprised terror group Hezbollah with hidden explosives.
A device explodes in one Beirut phone shop during the attack
AP
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Reuters
The shock attack has caught the world’s attention with the complexity of the operation and its size.
Lebanon’s Civil Aviation has now banned pagers and walkie-talkies from being taken on aircraft departing from Beirut.
That ban includes both carry-on and checked luggage and any found by security will be confiscated.
Ex-military intelligence officer Philip Ingram said there could be “panic around the world” with airports and planes now more vulnerable than before.
An Israel-style mass quantity attack would pose a major threat for airports screening tens of thousands of passengers a day.
Aviation expert Jeff Price said a terror group might struggle to use the same volume as a organised spy agency but, like Israel, they could use everyday items to hide explosives.
And authorities will now be looking shore up their systems and keep air travel safe.
Mr Ingram told The Sun: “Governments will be asking their airports and other places if their X-Ray machines and other scanning machines if they could pick up these things [explosives].
“It will have people thinking and thinking hard about wider security issues.”
He said only a percentage of devices were checked and they were looked at by human operators, who make mistakes.
Counter-intelligence spies will now be searching through sensitive supply chains to their countries to see if they would be vulnerable.
“As soon as you get a novel style of attack that has been successful in this stage, every government around the world will be sitting going: ‘right, let’s add another piece into our contingency to make sure we’re looking for this.”
Ingram said firms would also now be searching through their business partners and supply chains to check if it could be taken advantage of.
“I suspect it [being sabotaged] might put them out of business completely because no one’s going to use that shipping company if they can’t control and keep security over goods that are in transit.”
A building caught on fire following a walkie-talkie explosion
X/RulaelhalabiPrice said safety measures can’t pick up every prohibited item that goes through security as it is a “numbers game”.
The aviation security expert said: “You put so many [bombs] into a system, and it just increases your chances of something getting through.
“Even with the best technology and the best detector personnel out there, you’ll put enough stuff through a lot of different areas and at one point in time something is is frankly bound to get through.”
Price said a tiny minority of people are able to sneak guns, knives, and even drugs through current screening methods.
“The problem is we don’t know how many we’re missing,” he said.
“The more we detect the more we can presume that there’s been
misses in the past.
“We know that things get missed. There’s no 100 per cent detection.”
A car on fire in Beirut after a blast Wednesday
People stand over a crater after Lebanese army soldiers blew up one deviceBut he did back current checks being stringent enough to stop any coordinated attack as spies and cops would also be working to foil it.
Price said that even if someone was able to try and board a plane they would still have to make it past people on lookout and scanning machines.
And current security methods and and technology are now also being improved with AI technology, he said.
“We haven’t had a major aviation accident in a long time,” he said.
“It’s still considered the safest form of travel.”
Mossad was only able to carry out the attack after a long period of planning and preparing for the operation.
The speed of shipments increased recently after the group’s leadership pushed to stop members using cellphones and use pagers, which the Israelis could compromise.
Hezbollah is a “criminal organisation” and uses a number of fronts to buy and sell the weapons and resources the group needs.
These fronts are called “monkey firms” by the Israelis.
Mossad was able to penetrate Hezbollah’s supply chain, possibly with its own “monkeys”, and completely fool Hezbollah.
Where did the pagers come from?
By James Halpin, Foreign News Reporter
Iranian proxy Hezbollah ordered the pagers months ago but never thought the quaint piece of tech could be tampered with.
Hezbollah shifted to pagers after the group’s leader told members to stop using phones in February over fears they could be tracked by Israeli spies.
A senior Lebanese security source said the group had ordered 5,000 beepers made by Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, which were brought into the country in the spring.
But Gold Apollo told media in Taipei today the specific order was manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT in Budapest.
Gold Apollo boss Hsu Ching-kuang said BAC asked to manufacture their own pagers with the company’s trademark and they were paid from a mystery Middle Eastern bank account, NPR reports.
BAC Consulting chief executive Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono confirmed to media that her company worked with Gold Apollo.
But said, “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate.”
At some point during the manufacture, the devices were modified by Israel’s spy service with a small amount of explosive.
The AR-924 pager is described as being “rugged” and contains a rechargeable lithium battery with 85 days of battery life.
Their longevity would be important in Lebanon which has suffered major power outages.
Pagers also run on a different wireless network than mobile phones, making them more resilient in emergencies and harder for Israel to hack digitally.
The affected pagers were only delivered to Hezbollah recently.
Reports now claim Mossad set up shell companies to build the devices themselves.
But the New York Times reported BAC is an Israeli shell company, one of at least three used by spies to mask their identity.
BAC took on ordinary clients for whom they produced ordinary pagers.
Pagers sent to Hezbollah, however, contained the explosive PETN.
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Reuters
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