Israel and hezbollah after the exploding pagers

[Spymaster]

Bet he was chuffed.

I think he was probably dead first.

Yet another example of mawkish bollocks when it comes to animals. The fucking thing flew home as fast as possible because he was being shot at.

 

[A380]

I think he was probably dead first.

Yet another example of mawkish bollocks when it comes to animals. The fucking thing flew home as fast as possible because he was being shot at.

Speckled Jim!

 

[Chilli.s]

Its terrorism realy, and if Israel want to be a terrorist state as openly as this then they may find they have less argument against similar terror being used against themselves

 

[Spymaster]

Speckled Jim!

Darling!

 

[planetgeli]

BAC Consulting eh?

The pagers bore the logo of an apparently hapless Taiwanese manufacturer, Gold Apollo. Its founder, Hsu Ching-Kuang, said his company had subcontracted the manufacture of the AR-924 model involved in the attack to the little-known Budapest-based BAC Consulting KFT, a deal he said had been struck three years ago.

From here the trail goes strange, then cold. BAC Consulting was registered in Hungary in 2022 and provided a Budapest address on its website, the same address used by multiple companies. Its chief executive is Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, according to her profile on LinkedIn, and she is described as a graduate of the London School of Economics (LSE) and a native speaker of both Hungarian and Italian.

When the Guardian called, Bársony-Arcidiacono asked how the reporter had got the number and then hung up. However, she confirmed to NBC that her company worked with Gold Apollo. Asked about the pagers and the explosions, Bársony-Arcidiacono said: “I don’t make the pagers. I am just the intermediate [sic]. I think you got it wrong.” Later, Hungarian officials also said the pagers had not been made in the country.

BAC Consulting’s website went down on Wednesday, but internet archives of the site were full of generic pictures of coastlines and vague descriptions of its work without any reference to pager manufacture. Previous posts by Bársony-Arcidiacono on LinkedIn feature pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine comments and a complaint “how does it make no one says anything about US colonization”?

 

[tommers]

The same address used by multiple companies.

That's normal, they're often shared with other companies.

E.g. Business Address Service UK | Virtual Registered Office Address

I mean, I guess it's significant they haven't listed their bomb making factory.

 

[planetgeli]

That's normal, they're often shared with other companies.

E.g. Business Address Service UK | Virtual Registered Office Address

And completely normal for shell companies.

 

[tommers]

And completely normal for shell companies.

The BBC was interesting yesterday. The guy was stood outside saying "nobody here seems to know anything about this company" and it's like "well, yeah, they wouldn't, why would they? It's just a registered address."

 

[agricola]

I think a lot of other organisations will now take a look at their equipment.

Indeed, and this might be where the blowback comes for the Israelis. A lot of organisations use equipment and software developed by Israeli firms to carry out critical and/or sensitive tasks.

The war, the possible sanctions and especially things like this are going to really make those organizations think a lot about sourcing those things locally.

 

[Spymaster]

I don't think anyone's going to find anything particularly enlightening by chasing company registered addresses.

This is Israeli intelligence you're dealing with.

 

[two sheds]

Indeed, and this might be where the blowback comes for the Israelis. A lot of organisations use equipment and software developed by Israeli firms to carry out critical and/or sensitive tasks.

The war, the possible sanctions and especially things like this are going to really make those organizations think a lot about sourcing those things locally.

Should give a boost and a new talking point for BDS campaigns.

 

[kebabking]

I don't think anyone's going to find anything particularly enlightening by chasing company registered addresses.

This is Israeli intelligence you're dealing with.

True, but they've fucked up basic stuff before - they are usually pretty good, and sometimes they are astonishing, but sometimes they're just incompetent. Hezbollah have pulled off some stunning stuff before, and this time they got clubbed.

To a large extent, it doesn't matter - the op is done, it worked, and Israel's enemies (and, one hopes - looking at MOD - others...) are unlikely to be buying stuff on the open market from 'whothefuckisthat' backstreet tech merchants in the near future, so the op isn't really repeatable anyway.

All that matters is that the deception worked long enough for the plan to bear fruit - after that, it doesn't matter.

 

[Spymaster]

True, but they've fucked up basic stuff before - they are usually pretty good, and sometimes they are astonishing, but sometimes they're just incompetent. Hezbollah have pulled off some stunning stuff before, and this time they got clubbed.

To a large extent, it doesn't matter - the op is done, it worked, and Israel's enemies (and, one hopes - looking at MOD - others...) are unlikely to be buying stuff on the open market from 'whothefuckisthat' backstreet tech merchants in the near future, so the op isn't really repeatable anyway.

All that matters is that the deception worked long enough for the plan to bear fruit - after that, it doesn't matter.

Plus of course, the Israelis really aren’t bothered about getting fingered for this. It’s not as if the whole fucking world doesn’t know who’s behind it!

 

[Petcha]

Quite a detailed overview of how they did it. It's quite astonishing.

Israel 'did not tamper with pagers... but built them from scratch'

Initially it had been suspected that Mossad had managed to intercept and plant tiny bombs in a shipment of the pagers headed for the Iranian-backed terror group in Lebanon

www.dailymail.co.uk

It is not known how involved in or aware of the ultimate plan were the legitimate business people running the companies, such as British-educated physicist Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, who has denied any knowledge of the plot.

B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But for Mossad the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary.

Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers speaking to the NYT.

The pagers began shipping to Lebanon in the summer of 2022 in small numbers, but production was quickly ramped up after Mr. Nasrallah made his speech denouncing cellphones.

Not only did Nasrallah ban cellphones from meetings of Hezbollah militants, he ordered that the details of the group's movements and plans never be communicated over mobiles and that officers must carry pagers at all times, unwittingly playing even further into the hands of the Israelis.

 

[Pickman's model]

Quite a detailed overview of how they did it. It's quite astonishing.

Israel 'did not tamper with pagers... but built them from scratch'

Initially it had been suspected that Mossad had managed to intercept and plant tiny bombs in a shipment of the pagers headed for the Iranian-backed terror group in Lebanon

www.dailymail.co.uk

Maybe you could link to an archive version rather than the abominable mail

 

[Petcha]

Maybe you could link to an archive version rather than the abominable mail

I would but I don't know how!

 

[LakieLady]

Hope this works.

Archived Mail article

 

[planetgeli]

So the CEO of the shell company specialises in 'disaster management' according to that article.

Now that, kebabking my friend, is true dark humour.

 

[Spymaster]

So the CEO of the shell company specialises in 'disaster management' according to that article.

Now that, kebabking my friend, is true dark humour.

I wouldn't fancy being in her shoes right now.

 

[planetgeli]

I wouldn't fancy being in her shoes right now.

Don't shoot the intermediate

(I think she means intermediary)

 

[kebabking]

I wouldn't fancy being in her shoes right now.

If I were in her shoes, I'd pick walking boots, and go for a 5 year camping holiday in the Alps - having thrown my phone and credit cards in a drain. I wouldn't take a pager either...

 

[Gramsci]

On Al Jazeera they were reporting that Israel has over last months haha been targeting Lebanese factories that make batteries.

Thus forcing Lebanese and Hezbollah to buy from outside.

Another issue is that due to poor state of Lebanese economy. Electricity supply is intermittent. So everyone relies on back up battery power.

So these attacks have caused worry for whole population.

 

[NoXion]

Here's a question I have; how many of these tampered devices ended up in the hands of civilians? While it's doubtless very clever to reach into enemy procurement processes to strike at them in this manner, an organisation as large as Hezbollah is inevitably going to have some of its equipment end up in the hands of relatively ordinary folks.

Consider if Hezbollah had pulled this trick themselves; no doubt Israel would be shrieking about "terrorism". Maybe fewer such devices would have ended up in the hands of randoms, but there's no question that the IDF would be milking it for all it's worth.

 

[gosub]

Here's a question I have; how many of these tampered devices ended up in the hands of civilians? While it's doubtless very clever to reach into enemy procurement processes to strike at them in this manner, an organisation as large as Hezbollah is inevitably going to have some of its equipment end up in the hands of relatively ordinary folks.

Consider if Hezbollah had pulled this trick themselves; no doubt Israel would be shrieking about "terrorism". Maybe fewer such devices would have ended up in the hands of randoms, but there's no question that the IDF would be milking it for all it's worth.

1997. Last time I recall seeing a pager in the wild. Hezbollah were using retrograde tech deliberately to avoid tracking.

 

[Elpenor]

1997. Last time I recall seeing a pager in the wild. Hezbollah were using retrograde tech deliberately to avoid tracking.

In the year 2000, 3LW had a track called No More which features a lyric “looking at your pager”. This lyric was sampled a few years ago by 4Tet / KH

 

[Spymaster]

Consider if Hezbollah had pulled this trick themselves ...

Do you mean instead of years of suicide bombings, rocket attacks, car bombings, attacks on tourists, IEDs, assassinations, kidnappings and hijackings; or Hamas shooting kids at raves and kidnapping elderly folk for hostages?

 

[Yossarian]

Youngest victim to die was 9, I doubt she was the only child to pick up a beeping pager

Zeinab Mousawi, an aunt, said Fatima had just come home from her first day of fourth grade not long before the attack. Many of the mourners were Fatima’s school friends, their faces contorted with grief and shock at the violent death of someone so young.

Fatima was in the kitchen on Tuesday when a pager on the table began to beep, her aunt said. She picked up the device to bring it to her father and was holding it when it exploded, mangling her face and leaving the room covered in blood, she said.

https://archive.ph/2p3Qt

 

[gentlegreen]

1997. Last time I recall seeing a pager in the wild. Hezbollah were using retrograde tech deliberately to avoid tracking.

it's also reliable and works on old infrastructure - 85 days on a charge -

 

[gosub]

it's also reliable and works on old infrastructure - 85 days on a charge -

And lends a hipsteresque vibe to Lebanese gangsters

 

[kebabking]

And lends a hipsteresque vibe to Lebanese gangsters

Middle aged worcestershire would-be gangsters?