Hitting below the waistline – the curious case of exploding pagers

As I am writing this article, more than a dozen people have been killed and over 3000 including the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon injured in a deadly remote strike in Lebanon. Out of these, more than 200 are critically injured. The incident happened when more than 5000 pagers being used by senior commanders of Hezbollah blasted off within a short time span of 30 minutes. All the hospitals across Lebanon are flooded with injured patients as Hezbollah not only blamed Israel for this attack but also vowed to retaliate and take revenge. 

Such attacks look like a fantasy, some scene from a sci-fi movie or a piece of imagination but it happened in reality and has put the world in serious jeopardy as to how secure we are and what is going to be the future of warfare. It is scary to imagine the scenario when a country does not need any weapon but can weaponize the mobile phones, pagers and other digital devices using a radio or an electromagnetic impulse. This is not only a big threat to the humanity but also taking the future of warfare into a different dimension altogether. In the present era of nanotechnology where everything can be miniaturized, there are endless possibilities of weaponizing anything, even the clothes being worn by a person. 

What we know till now, that these pagers were procured by Hezbollah in March this year to avoid intense Israeli electronic surveillance which was further intensified due to recent Gaza conflict. Unlike a mobile or a radio set, pagers are passive devices which work under a one-way broadcast server. Under such conditions, it is nearly impossible to detect the location of a pager and that’s what Hezbollah wanted as it was facing multiple threats from Israel to its rocket locations. 

But the way over 5000 pagers blasted off within a span of just 30 minutes, one can be absolutely sure that this was not an accident. The entire modus operandi indicate an external hand and Hezbollah was quick to blame Israel as it is already fighting a war with Israel for last several decades. The pagers which blasted were Gold Apollo AR-924 pagers specially ordered by Hezbollah and were reportedly encrypted. Gold Apollo is a Taiwanese company which further clarified that these pagers were made by BAC Consulting KFT, a Hungary based company with which Gold Apollo had a licensing agreement to manufacture and supply pagers. Although as per a report of Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, Apollo Gold Taiwan itself has exported over 2.4 Lakh such pagers in last two years, but no such blast was reported from elsewhere. 

Gold Apollo claimed on their website that the pager (AR-924 in this case) was a rugged one, waterproof, shock proof and has a strong lithium-ion battery with an endurance of over 85 days. With about 15-20 mW (Mili Watt) power requirement of the pager, ideally it should have a minimum 2600-2800mAh battery which is sizeable enough to cause fatal damage in case of a blast. There have been cases worldwide where people were killed by mobile phone blasts and the recent Lebanon event was technically similar with the exception that it was not an accident and was triggered remotely. 

As there are inputs on various media channels that Hezbollah got these pagers encrypted, it must have put some kind of hardware or the chip inside to decrypt the incoming messages. It is not difficult for an external agency that too Israel to have some arrangement causing override to that chip resulting in overheating of the battery causing the explosion. These chips could have been triggered by either a strong radio signal of the same frequency and code or by using an electromagnetic pulse. In almost all the cases, blast was triggered within minutes after the pager owners received a message. This duration was ranging from few minutes to up to 30 minutes after the receipt of message which could be due to the ambient temperature around the victim. Pagers in an air-conditioned environment may have taken longer time while pagers in a hot atmosphere would have blasted almost immediately. 

Nevertheless, the recent incident was a textbook example of supply chain poisoning where the goods meant for an opposition party were intercepted midway, poisoned (altered) and sent only to be used as and when desired. As of now, all the experts worldwide are only making speculations based on their knowledge and experience however, the real cause of this attack will only be known after the remaining unexploded pagers which are held with Hezbollah are thoroughly investigated.

The incident was bad and unfortunate but most importantly, it has not only opened another dimension of war above the digital and cyber but also created worldwide debate over the security of the mankind from his own gadgets. India in particular is more vulnerable as most of the digital assets we use in our country are made in China which is an archrival. No one has an idea as to when and how these gadgets can be weaponized resulting in mass casualties. It has opened a big debate on the safety of our own and the measures to counter such threats.

(The author is a veteran of the Armed Forces. He is a known Defence Strategist with keen interests in international affairs, maritime security, terrorism and internal security)

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own and do not reflect those of DNA)