Tariq Lodhi

1. It is the first lesson of the intelligence textbook that the clandestine communication is the weakest link for any operation; and among Counter or Offensive Clandestine Operation, the strengths lie in the Security of Communication.
2. On 17-Sep-2024, at about 15:30 Hrs local, abruptly, southern parts of Lebanon including Dahiyeh, southern Tyre, Southern Beirut, Beqaa Region, were rattled by multiple small explosions that followed beeper-signals and vibration on personal-pagers, and as the subscribers tried to reach for them, they exploded. According to witnesses, the target pagers received a message that appeared as if it was being sent by the top-echelon of Hezbollah, but in reality, were a specially encrypted code which was set to activate the explosion. Some media outlets claimed that several pagers also exploded in Syria too. The explosions continued for about an hour, and when it ceased, it had left atleast one dead and about 3,000 injured. The 5,000 AR924 pagers, were non-GPS and only wireless based text message devices, which were distributed about a month ago amongst the Hezbollah. These pagers were procured some five months ago. As the injured rushed to the hospitals, they found medical services impaired as several medical persons carrying the pagers had also fallen victim to the explosions . Next day, on 18-Sep-2024, devices including iCOM’s V82 Walkie-Talkie sets, biometric-capturing devices, Solar Panels connected to computer devices, Solar Energy Systems, car batteries also exploded in different parts of Lebanon. Atleast one car caught fire when it was parked at a funeral, and another four were damaged due to explosions, in town of Aabbassiyeh. Lithium-Ion Batteries, also began to explode in houses and offices, injuring people and children. Modern solar panel control systems, which were Internet-connected for remote controls and management, and were in use at homes and offices, were also targeted. According to reports, when the pager and Walkie-Talkies based attacks ceased, they had left atleast 32-persons dead and about 3,250 injured, with atleast 200-critical . The pagers and other devices, from Lebanon to Syria had come under the attack. Amongst the injured and killed were members of Hezbollah and a large number of other innocent people who were either carrying those pagers or were caught in their close vicinity. It would never be clear whether it was sheer luck or otherwise, that none of the targeted pager was being carried on board any aircraft at that time when the pagers were exploding on ground.
3. Initially, USA termed these attacks as a cyber-attack and asked all concerned to remain calm while it distanced itself from the attack and denied any prior knowledge about it. According to some sources, the use of such methods that employ civil infrastructures and materials for military purposes and in an indiscriminate manner are unfavoured by CIA. The matter of the exploding pagers has been moved by Lebanese authorities before the UN labour body, internationalizing the incident and placing it before the international touchstones .
4. The incident was a wake-up call for all organisations using Wi-Fi, Wireless reliant devices, which were bought through black-market, and underscored the need to conduct one-time checks of their devices and ramping up their defences against any infiltrations by State or Non-State Actors. The incident was a small technological marvel that involved developing an initiating micro-chip that converted a harmless looking device into a deadly IED, that lose distinction between civilian or a military target in the mist of Hybrid Warfare.
5. Israel had very cunningly designed the whole Hybrid-Warfare matrix that was kept hidden in plain sight of the Axis of Resistance and its allies that included Iran and its patrons. Hezbollah, being the main affected party had failed to recognize the lurking dangers or the strategic and tactical implications of the exploding pagers. Hezbollah had been led to believe that pager-detonations were in retaliation to compromise of Hezbollah’s attempt to target a former defense officer in Tel Aviv, earlier the same day on 17-Sep-2024 . Israeli Shin Bet had frustrated an attempt by Hezbollah of targeting a former senior defense officer in Tel Aviv, when an IED attached to cell-phone, equipped with a camera, connected to Hezbollah’s remote-controlling station in Lebanon was retrieved, for live-streaming the assassination, and for triggering the IED . An earlier attempt of similar nature had been frustrated in Tel Aviv a year ago.
6. The rigged pagers had been inserted in the Hezbollah’s supply chains for many months and had “aged” in were well-integrated in its communications networks. Undetected and unsuspected, Hezbollah had been using the infected devices during its operations, confident that they, being passive and low-tech, did not leave signatures for Israel to detect. The initial infiltrations of the communication systems allowed Israel to gain access to other communication systems in use by Hezbollah and its allies.
7. The Axis of Resistance appeared to have had believed that these passive devices being low-tech communication devices were below-the-radar types. Strapped to nearly each and every fighter, it was literally a remote-controlled bomb strapped to each, that also continuously provided high grade tracking and tactical intelligence. These devices were adding as an efficient source of real-time grassroots level intelligence acquisition tool, easily interceptable and verifiable by cross-checks through other means. Perhaps the idea to booby-trap these pages had come up when the break-in had already been achieved by Israel. Like so many other such operations, as the flow of intelligence began to get stagnated, and Gaza began to crumble, the pager-related operations were soon liable to became non-productive and qualify to be destroyed.
8. On the contrary, Israel was drawing rich data after completely infiltrating Hezbollah’s communication networks and was proceeding on a well-thought-out strategy. The data was being compiled to from a substantial data reservoir, which with support of latest technological tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Photo and Voice Recognition, Behavioural Pattern development etc., became an intelligence-mining bonanza. Through complex monitoring and interception methods, Israel appeared to have had completely captivated not only in Hezbollah’s networks, but using the initial breakthroughs, it had succeeded in effectively infiltrating the over-all communication systems of Axis of Resistance and its patrons. This expanse of infiltration also reflects on the excellent coordination available withing the Israeli Security Intelligence community, who clearly has acquired the ability to store, link, and retrieve strands of linked intelligence. Some of the past scoops, like procuring the truckload of drawings of the engines of Mirage-III from Swiss company Sulzer during the 1969s , or whisking away the Nuclear Archive from Iran’s protected storages in Jan-2018, etc. remain available for Israel to link digitally while planning further operations.
9. In Hybrid-Warfare, various tactics are interlaced, as one leads to the other. Soon after the completion of the phase marked by Pagers and Walkie-Talkie detonations, it wasn’t enough to stab Hezbollah with the detonating pagers, Israel twisted it too with follow-up air attacks. It launched a series of aerial attacks against Lebanon claiming neutralizing of Hezbollah’s 100-launchers and 1,000-barrels. These attacks have a signature of a well-planned strategy to completely buckle down Hezbollah. With the detonation of the pagers some three days earlier, it would not have taken long for Hezbollah and its mentors to realize that the whole Order of Battle (ORBAT) has been compromised due to persistently overwhelming interception of the communication network. This meant that all of Hezbollah’s operational sites had been cross-referenced for a Fix and had come within the Israeli crosshair.
10. Investigation reports in the media revealed that the explosions occurred in pagers that belonged to a batch of 5,000 AR294 pagers procured by Hezbollah through its supply chain, about five months ago. These pagers were supplied by a Taiwan based company Gold Apollo, who denied making any direct sales to Hezbollah. The marked reluctance to link any dealings with Hezbollah, was understandable, since Hezbollah has been sanctioned by several states, and businessmen would avoid being linked with any commercial dealings with them. The Gold Apollo, in addition to these 5,000 AR294 pagers, had also sold an unspecified number of atleast three other models of pagers at the same time . It also claimed that the electronic chip (mini-circuit board) in the exploded pagers was not the one that Gold Apollo manufactured, and the pagers themselves were also not the ones that the company had supplied. Some sources reported that €1.6 million had been transferred from Lebanon to Bulgaria for onwards payment to undisclosed source in Hungary, for the procurement of these pagers . Nothing is however known about the identity of the end users, except that the payments made to Gold Apollo were made from a Mid-Eastern bank account, for which the transactions had faced some issues through the Gold Apollo’s bank in Taiwan.
11. Subsequently, Gold Apollo conceded that about three years ago, it had given certain licensing rights to Budapest based company called BAC Consulting KFT. This company, is ostensibly, housed in a residential building and shares its address with about ten other companies. The New York Times thinks that this company is a front-office like so many others, working for MOSSAD . The BAC Consulting KFT is a Single Member Company (SMC), where Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono is listed as its CEO. The CEO insists that they are only middle-men or brokers, who do not manufacture any article, but only conduct trading. According to media investigations, MOSSAD had also opened atleast two more similar shell companies, functioning as Dead Letter Box to confuse any attempts to conduct due diligence.
12. The inquiries also revealed a possibility of the pagers being passed-on by Gold Apollo to another Sofia based company, Norta Global Ltd., which was incorporated on 14-Apr-2022, in Hungary by a Norwegian citizen. These incorporation dates coincided with the incorporation time period of BAC Consulting KFT. The Norta Global Ltd., was registered against a Virtual Business Address, shared by another 200 companies . Bulgarian national security agency, DNS, has undertaken the investigation into the role of Norta Global Limited, for inquiring into the allegations that it had supplied the said pagers, though the authorities claimed that there was no such transaction from their soil.
13. The Day of Exploding-Pagers was an apocalyptic thunderbolt that had struck Hezbollah for the second time on 17-Sep-2024, after the Beirut Port Explosion of 04-Aug-2020. The series of pager explosions had taken literally sapped Hezbollah out of its communication and operational security at a time, when it was highly vulnerable to Israeli attacks. It had already been claimed by media that these explosions were engineered by Israeli security services, who had succeeded in planting booby-trapped pagers, Walkie-Talkies and Biometric Capturing Devices after modifying them and inserting explosives and specially modified electronic chips, which could be triggered remotely. This notion was left to no doubt, when on 04-Feb-2025, Israeli PM while visiting USA presented a Golden Pager to President Donald Trump, as a memento for its defining blow to Hezbollah . The media, eulogizing MOSSAD’s services, admitted that Israel had been working on this highly sophisticated intelligence operation some years. The beaming Israeli PM, and the appreciative USA President, lead observers to believe that the plan to change the primary status to Gaza and converting it into an exclusive real-estate project was a pre-mediated strategy; the likes of which are fixtures of history as Anglo-Russian Entente (1907), Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), Treaty of Versailles (1919), Potsdam Agreement (1945), etc.
14. It is also being inferred that the subject pagers and Walkie-Talkies were supplied in Completely Knocked Down (CKD) condition or were cloned by a hitherto unknown third party. The possibility of replacing the Gold Apollo manufactured components with products made by other countries has led some leaders of third countries to lash out against Israel by equating this tactic of counterfeiting and conspiring to implicate third parties in proliferating IED technologies, while termed it as terrorism. Perhaps an international convention is required to restrict use of such tactics for military use, similar to restrictions on use of some metals for bullet coating, or use of toxics etc.
15. With its well-developed precision manufacturing capabilities, MOSSAD is known to have several-times factored-in support of the Israeli Aircraft Industry (IAI), its Nuclear Facilities, and other IT based companies for development of innovative and customised technical equipment for specific operations. The modified parts of the subject exploding devices appear to have been produced in bulk using such established machining and tooling facilities by MOSSAD. It seems that the supplies of all the exploding devices were diverted to these workshops form where after quick replacement of the components, they were smuggled onwards into Lebanon.
16. On the back-end of such clandestine operations, it is understood that MOSSAD uses its assets in the manufacturing sector to provide complete technical support for accomplishing these missions in the field; and in this case, MOSSAD would not have faced any difficulty in developing these booby-trapped pagers and inserting them onto Hezbollah’s supply-chain.
17. Yet, it is unlikely that the pagers were subjected to a comprehensive or a complete security check by the end-user, thus skipping any chances of detection of the explosives or mysterious circuitry. It is likely that various psychological pressures were tactfully applied on Hezbollah cadres, to hasten the distribution and operationalization of these contaminated pagers, without in-depth inspections.
18. Any effort to trace the supply chain of the pagers, in all entirety would be like chasing the phantoms because with the labyrinth of systematic cutouts, front organizations and forged documentations, it is near impossible to trace or to identify the precise route or number of the infected devices. It is not even known that was this the only route or channel which was being exploited by MOSSAD or were there other such procurement channels, that remained in reserve to be used subsequently.
19. It is very unlikely that these items were procured under the name of Hezbollah, instead it is likely that cut-outs belonging to the black market were used at a price many times more than on-the-shelf price. The possibility of some crooked people within the supply chain on the Israeli payroll, playing a central role, wittingly or unwittingly, in supply of these products, remains high. Possibility of existence of more than one such cell being handled by MOSSAD simultaneously in compartmentation is yet another possibility. Perhaps it will never be known that when or where these pagers were bought, nor their lot number would be verifiable. Israel is well experienced in exploiting all the loopholes in the international procurement process as it has been procuring restricted materials through its specially designed sub-organisations, and on the other hand, has even been supplying restricted or sanctioned materials to actors deemed hostile to Israel and its allies.
20. Clandestine transaction and procurement deals can only take place when the other party succeeds in forging illicit financial relations with the customer enabling sale of sanctioned, restricted, sub-standard, rigged or counterfeit products at exuberant prices. Such deals in procurement of equipment from black market also entail the risk of substandard material, fraud and now, possibility of inserting sabotage material. There have been many such incidents in the clandestine world of cloaks and daggers, for example, the sales of Israeli Arms and missiles to Iran during Iran Contra Affair and the crash of Transporte Aero Rioplatense (TAR) aircraft on 24-Jul-1981.
21. In Israel, like world over, it is not unusual for former security professionals to migrate to commercial business and market their accumulated expertise and security intelligence-related innovative devices for commercial and organisational use, while maintaining profitable ties with their former organisations. Thus, opening and operating such companies by experienced persons in the intelligence security world is nothing unusual. Also, security intelligence history has abundant records of front companies floated by intelligence services to conduct their covert work. Israel, now after total compromise of its pagers-related strategy would only be interested to use the event for marketing its merchandise of clandestine services and products. Any investigations or trail would be simply stone walled by removing the cutouts, atleast until another inquiry overrides the one related to pagers and Walkie-Talkies. The customs, shipping etc., from Taiwan to Lebanon, related documentation of these 5,000 pagers was not traceable through relevant offices or other legal conduits. Apparently, the consignment(s) was brought into Lebanon through clandestine means, which further mystifies the deal and the imports.
22. There is a high probability, that there were some Moles or Agents who played the role of bridging MOSSAD’s operational team to the procurement chain of Hezbollah. Looking at the spectrum of explosions, it is apparent that these contaminated pagers had trickled down as far as Syria and into the hands of IRGC but perhaps were intentionally left untouched by Israel for the moment. According to media and calculated analysis, the equipment was intercepted in the transit and diverted to the laboratory where the replacements were carried out professionally.
23. Lebanon, that has been occupied several times by Israel since 1978, under Operation Litani, whence it pulled-out after controls were delegated to UNIFIL, and, again during Lebanon War in Jun-1982, when Israel remained in Lebanon till May-2000. Thereafter, several more disputes were born, including that of Sheba Farms and the likes, and, yet once again, Israel entered Lebanon in Jul-2006 during conflict with Hezbollah. During all these periods of occupation, Israel had ample of opportunity to recruit intelligence resources in Lebanon, and maintain a copious flow of HUMINT, besides development of several cells, whose presence was later felt by mysterious targeted attacks in Lebanon. The mother of all such mysterious events was undoubtedly the Beirut Port explosion of 04-Aug-2020, that remains unsolved till-date. On 04-Feb-2021, publisher Lokman Slim was assassinated in Lebanon under mysterious circumstances and believed to have been handiwork of some secret organisation. Hundreds of such targeted persons have been assassinated with brutal efficiency and relative impunity.
24. Curiously pagers are more convenient to be tapped and electronically manipulated; if they can be tapped, they can be hacked too. These devices, that are going the dinosaurs’ way were considered as a passive device, involving low-tech means of communication were being used by Hamas as well, in its bid to track it. Pakistan has seen use of pagers in early 1990s when in Karachi it was one of the handiest communication tools used by terrorists for planning and executing their terrorist attacks in the ethnic violence. Pakistan’s security services, had effectively used technology available at that time to pin-point hundreds of terrorists who were compelled to use these devices after the cellular services were switched off for several months at a stretch.
25. The break-in into the communication network, appears to have been accomplished at least a year and a half earlier. Considering that between 18 – 20,000 Palestinians from Gaza were granted work-permits to work in various Kabbutz, other parts of Israel and West Bank, a privilege given by the Israelis on a person-to-person basis; and also since the security of Gaza was delegated to a 20,000-strong Gaza Police, managed by Hamas and directly monitored by Israel, Israel enjoyed excellent person-to-person contact and opportunity to cultivate the vulnerable applicants.
26. It is not impossible that with a large number of Palestinian detainees, Israel had also managed to cultivate informants and agents at grassroot level all across the occupied Palestine. This method of recruitment intelligence assets is quite common and has been extensively used by Indian security services in attempts to cultivate or turn-around militants captured in IIOJK. Similarly, Israel has had frequently kept Lebanon under its occupation for sufficiently long periods and had all the opportunity to exploit the lingering hostility between the Phalangists and the Muslims. Such recruitments are a perpetual process in tension-prone areas where the mightier develop intelligence resources to gain insights and intelligence about their adversaries. With the frequency and impunity of Israeli covert attacks being conducted on the mainland Iran, it seems that exploiting its intelligence resources among the Axis of Resistance, Israel has, over a period of time, gained adequate sufficient intelligence access into the Iranian systems as well.
27. Taking cognizance of all the opportunities Israel had, and the ease of cultivating agents, sources and informants, it would be a little surprise if Israel has well-developed moles into the ranks and files of its major opponents in the region. Systematic use of these assets, backed up by high-tech data storage and analysis devices systems, the modern-day intelligence has been revolutionized as its girth continues to be widened, and the retrieval systems significantly focused. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) has further accentuated the rapidity and relevance of sifting actionable intelligence from the huge, imploding chaff of information.
28. It can thus, be safely assumed that MOSSAD has developed extensive on-ground HUMINT resources through penetration in the file and ranks of Hezbollah and Hamas. The intelligence gleaned from these resources is used both ways; to verify and improve intelligence gathering from other sources such as SIGINT and COMINT etc, and to acquire real-time quality intelligence.
29. Despite such abundance of intelligence available to Israel, it is unfathomable that how Israel had failed to foresee and pre-empt the raid by Hamas on 07-Oct-2023. This has rendered the matter open to intellectual debate whether it was an Intelligence Failure as we are being led to believe, or it was an Intelligence Coup. Israel has already admitted that it had been working on this operation for several years , which gives rise to suspicions about hatching a multi-national plot to completely occupy the Gaza Strip. Existence of such an arrangement between Israel and its allies is not entirely impossible, since there have been several such agreements between various powers during various phases of time, when secretly territories were divided or borders reshaped, in name of retaining a balance of power, or simply for purposes of colonisation.
30. If Hezbollah was unaware of rigged-pagers, and other contaminated elements of communication being planted in its operational network, then this is certainly a major and fatal Counter-Intelligence Failure. Not only this surreptitious attack by Israel laid bare the weaknesses in the Hezbollah but also points towards possibility of similar major counter-intelligence security holes in the Hamas networks, since they also, for quite some time have been closely functioning in tandem with Hezbollah. Such exposes compel to revisit earlier major incidents and analyse whether they had also been driven by MOSSAD’s penetrations in the HAMAS and other groups operating in Palestine at a wholesale scale. Taking cognizance of the frequency of clandestine operations conducted concurrently in different geographical locations against common enemy Iran, it remains no secret that the Israeli security services have managed to develop inroads into the protective mechanisms and have developed networks of Moles and other Agents in and around the Axis of Resistance. These penetrations appear to be overwhelming since very few cases of assassination and sabotage have been pre-empted, detected or their real sources have been identified by the targeted entities, who have produced no measurable results, except levelling broad accusations against MOSSAD and other allied intelligence organizations.
31. It appears that Israeli security services had been successful in penetrating Hezbollah’s communication network like the fabled Trojan Horse, or modern-day Trojan Malware, and outsmarted the Iranian or IRGC and other members of the Axis of Resistance. The surreptitious Trojan like penetration of Hezbollah’s security umbrella by MOSSAD, since some years, has also been claimed by Israeli Media . Using the sally’s port in Hezbollah’s security citadel, Israel has gained sufficient control to manipulate and to some extent drive Hezbollah’s tactical choreography in the Hybrid Warfare theatre. With Israel’s surreptitious intrusion, Israel was able to hijack the entire communication system of Hezbollah. Israeli strategy of pushing Hezbollah onto the no-cell-phone track is just one such example.
32. The sustained infiltration of Israeli moles and intelligence assets in Hezbollah’s secure networks, are similar to the intelligence coup Britain had accomplished by surreptitiously capturing Enigma machine and thereafter, conducting massive interception operation, bringing German Navy to its knees in WW-II.
33. It was evident that this Counter-Intelligence Failure is tip-of-an-iceberg and will set in motion a chain-reaction that will ultimately sink Hezbollah. Israel had patiently waited to allow the seedling of communication violation to develop into a tree, before it could give a final tactical putsch and impose its own dominance. Israel had well-guarded the security of the operation quite successfully, and the intelligence resources that the Axis of Resistance thought it had, proved to be a failure. As a logical and pre-planned strategic matrix, in the very next few days after the first wave of attacks on 17-Sep-2024, Hezbollah was deceptively led to believe that the attacks through the pagers have been thwarted by ceasing the use of pagers. Little had Hezbollah and its patrons realized that through patient monitoring, Israel had sufficiently achieved its targets for tracking of Hezbollah and its assets and had therefore near-exhausted the utility of the pagers in its C4ISR realm. Though Hezbollah as usual vowed to avenge the exploding pagers, it had been placed on a slippery slope by Israel’s second wave of attacks through exploding iCOM Walkie-Talkies on 18-Sep-2024. The attack on Walkie-Talkies was more specific as it targeted the Hezbollah cadres carrying the rigged devices. Some explosive-laden sets lying in vehicles also detonated and caused fire in atleast four cars. Apparently, in the case of the Walkie-Talkie sets sabotage, it was customized technique, and a single signal was sufficient to be transmitted with no delay timing proviso for the user to hold it or bring it close to his face.
34. The 2010 memories of the STUXNET and other cyber-attacks against Iranian nuclear program have already proven that the cyber tools can alter the electric current flows, speeds etc. of the salve components, and trigger in-built actions that may bypass the critical limitations of the device. For example, in the covert attack on the Natanz nuclear power plant in Iran during Apr-2021, the electric current flowing into the electric generator of the facility was manipulated through remotely operated cyber-techniques, and the 60Hz current-frequency was tempered, leading to outbreak of a fire in the grid-station. Separately, the air-accidents of VVIP, unnatural deaths of several leaders of Axis of Resistance and Iran, under mysterious circumstances that were followed by inconclusive investigations in the past several decades, can be safely assumed to have been either part of the wider Hybrid-Warfare operation or attacks using Cyber-Technologies.
35. Photographs of exploded pagers displayed in the media show several portions of the destroyed pager, including pieces of their circuit boards. However, there has been no photograph of any fragment, part or complete battery. This strengthens the claim that small quantities of explosive, weighing approximately 03-grams, was concealed within the battery compartment. The pictures of the intact circuit boards after the explosion further substantiate the view that the explosives were within the battery compartment. Perhaps the tactical advantage of concealing explosives in a battery is that it is more difficult to open, examine and then close the same. It is less likely that the batteries, sans explosive, could be manipulated remotely to somehow reach the level of detonation and destruction. The concealed charge was rigged to detonate with specific encrypted signal broadcasted through the Pager specific carrier waves. Ostensibly, similar batteries were used in the Walkie Talkies, though the number of batteries was more than those in pagers.
36. Some experts suggest that the pagers had a bug that would overheat the batteries or the explosive and detonate it. However, there is little possibility of planting an uncontrolled bug, or the heating-up of the batteries, since none of the injured or witnesses reported any such sequence. There have been earlier incidents of Lithium batteries exploding inadvertently elsewhere, which led to prohibition of Lithium batteries connected to devices to be carried on commercial aircraft. Such devices included hoverboards, SIGAWAY, etc., but none of them was remotely operated.
37. The pattern in which the devices exploded was well mapped and controlled and apparently were designed to explode in batches. The view that the explosions were calculated and calibrated is further strengthened by the fact that 5,000 pagers were imported or procured by Hezbollah, the number of exploded pagers seems to be only 3,000, meaning that either the remaining 2,000 were not infected, or they have been deliberately left out for another day. Though use of the older models of pager by senior leadership could have saved them from detonations, it would not have prevented the Israeli COMINT components from calculating their fix.
38. Since Hamas was using dedicated landlines, secured through local networks, not passing through the switchboards of the telephone services, and at times, routed through tunnels, it could have insulated it from the broad-spectrum interception of Hezbollah – procured pagers by Israel. Had they realized that some of the pagers that came to them courtesy Hezbollah were interpolated, they would have cried wolf. Or, the Israeli agencies kept the Hamas sector insulated and in operational compartmentation in context of expanding the explosive pagers.
39. It may not have come as a surprise that despite the compromise of the exploding-pagers-strategy, Israel still managed to overcome Hezbollah’s communication security or R/T or Radio Silence, and perhaps, shunning of cell-phones, as it tracked and targeted Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah on 27-Sep-2024. Despite the compromise of the exploding-pagers, Israel successfully tracked and targeted Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. On 27-Sep-2024, while Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was visiting a multi-storied residential building in the Haret Hreik, in Dahiyeh area of southern Beirut, Israel, using Bunker Buster Bombs or GBU-28 and GBU37, GPS guided, precision, 5,000 lbs. bombs targeted six residential-apartment towers, killing more than 33 persons, and injuring another 195. Along with Hassan Nasrallah, Ali Karaki, commander of Hizballah’s Southern Lebanon sector and Abbas Niloforshan, a senior IRGC commander, were reported to have been killed. It may be recalled that Ali Karaki had narrowly escaped an earlier attack on him, only four days before this attack. This attack left no doubt that Israel has managed to completely infiltrate and penetrate Hezbollah and has neutralized the communication security. The incident also supports the assumption that the ranks and files of the other allied members of the Axis of Resistance are also under similar risk. It is evident that the real-time intelligence of Hassan Nasrallah’s meeting, as well as the identification of the participants, was available to Israel in real-time.
40. This assassination, in the given circumstances, compounds the belief that Israel had completely capitulated communication security of Hezbollah, IRGC, and Hamas communication networks, and had sufficient intelligence assets in HUMINT sector, on ground in the Middle East, particularly in the areas that Israel had occupied in the past, to efficiently carry-out sabotage if so required. This deluge of real-time intelligence and use of intelligence multiplier systems aboard its most advanced Oron Aircraft that came in service in 2021, had literally boosted the quantum of actionable intelligence available to Israel. It was perhaps from there-on that it began weaving plans for a final kill, and preparation for a series of operations well integrated with each other through intelligent use of cyber power, perhaps application of AI and other tools.
41. Israel had apparently exhausted the achievable objectives list before burning down the pagers’ operation by destroying the pagers in bulk. While the pagers-attack provided fuel for anti-Israel propaganda, it has had, for the time being, globally placed the pagers and other black-market-procured communication equipment on ice. With a major damage inflicted on Hezbollah through this and successive Walkie-Talkie attacks by Israel, and with the ceasefire in Lebanon and for Gaza, the further immediate use of radio-device bombings seems to be paused for the moment.
42. Using pager as an IED, or concealment of explosives in wireless communication devices is nothing new and has been used in the past by various intelligence agencies including MOSSAD. A cell phone rigged with explosives was detonated by MOSSAD, when it took-out Yahya Ayyash in Beit al-Lahia in Gaza on 05-Jan-1996. From operational perspective, the use of such remotely controllable, highly mobile, addressable explosive devices that are in personal use of individuals are similar to highly personalized landmines which can be detonated singularly or collectively against the target(s). This method definitely surpasses the magnetic bombs that were earlier being used by Israel, which risked the exposure of the assassin, or the use of drones, that can not only be visible and traceable, but also can be shot or commandeered down. The Magnetic Bombs have however undergone proliferation, as several incidents occurred in Afghanistan, though it can only be guessed that who provided the technology or the magnetic devices.
43. Since the devices are believed to have been addressable and the explosions continued for about an hour, the pattern suggest that each detonating command or signal was dedicated to single unique address or pager respectively and was not a universal detonation command. It further confirms that each and every identified selected pager was struck by sending a coded message to each one of them separately . Apart from sending and targeting the fighters and important elements in the chain, some of them must have been detonated to confuse the enemy. It is also understood that not all devices would have been exhausted while some must have been kept in reserve to be used subsequently. The medium used to trigger the detonations across such large geographical territories speaks of using cyberspace for targeting the distribution nodes or local exchanges which transmit the messages to the pagers.
44. Doubtless, these were highly coordinated attacks, timed and synchronized by Israel, who had used the latest technologies available for Hybrid-Warfare, that most likely were supported by the state-of-the-art Oron aircraft and its C4ISR platforms. Sometime in the second week of Sep-2024, before the wide-spread pager-detonations, Israel had hastened up its operations and managed to selectively target about 170-fighters of Hezbollah using precision tracking and attacking techniques . It is assessed that the Oron platforms had been extensively used in furnishing real-time actionable intelligence for conduct of these precise operations, even though the Pagers had been de-commissioned.
45. It remained no secret that the Israeli Security Services had surreptitiously broken into the communication systems of Hezbollah and Hamas, and capitulated it since quite some time, as it patiently accumulated sort of MetaData of these organisations and personalities, from which AI based tools could construct requisite intelligence patterns. Theoretically, it is possible to infiltrate through the low-tech pager network, to which Israel seemed to have had great success, and from thereon, garner real-time intelligence and work out fixes of all the potential targets, which at that stage is a piece of cake. The signals terminating at the passive pagers, were being correlated, triangulated and verified and at times tracked by the powerful systems on-board the Oron aircraft which could cruise at heights of 40,000 feet above mean sea level and have a wider coverage over Lebanon. The CNN opined that this was a joint operation between MOSSAD and the Israeli Military Intelligence (MI), and apparently, they had not shared the plans to detonate the pagers enmasse with the USA.
46. With the systematic and synchronized use of placing these platforms at a sufficient altitude, these can be used to have over-the-horizon access to send and receive electronic signals through an intelligent composition of the satellite sensors and other available relays, while simultaneously bridging it with on-ground stations and operational units in multiple geographical locations. With rising usability of drones which can stay airborne for much longer periods and with the Oron aircraft supported by the Boeing 707 modified air-to-air refuelers, this combination has become, for the time being, a formidable system. With the intelligence which has been already captured and analysed, complete networks of the Axis of Resistance seem to have been laid bare. This makes the C4ISR platforms as the fulcrums of all the intelligence activities by Israel, which itself, is cocooned in layers of defensive shields.
47. Israel, having the primary tools of intelligence at its disposal in form of human resources as in HUMINT, and secure mediums to transmit that intelligence across to the next tiers, and also possessing ability to capture intelligence through other technological systems, has been able to create an enviable reservoir of intelligence and retrieval systems. At a higher level, its collaboration with India and USA has further broadened the base from which it can pull out relevant intelligence, not only for its own use but can also share or trade it with other allies. As we notice that the sequence of targeted attacks has suddenly increased in frequency and accuracy, it would be prudent to deem that Israel is exploiting the recently acquired, modified intelligence resources, polished and finished by the composite use of all the elements and developing even a broader system going much beyond the existing C4ISR concept.
48. We would notice that since the inception of the ORON in 2021, the frequency and accuracy of precise attacks have increased, reflecting on the efficacy of operational multi-tasking and use of this platform. The availability of such a behemoth of intelligence also seems to have created an environment where perhaps False Flag Operations are more intelligently engineered to provide instant, global, plausible justification for Israel to conduct its operations and to garner diplomatic as well as military support from its allies without any fear of contradiction or international condemnation.
49. The Hezbollah, perhaps after seeing the escalated targeted killings had arrived at the correct conclusion that the cellular phones were monitored and tracked by Israel and were being used as beacons for homing-in the Israeli missiles and rockets. On 13-Feb-2024, the Secretary General of Hezbollah Mr. Hassan Nasrullah had warned all the members to “…. shut it off, bury it, put it in the iron chest and lock it up, …”, and had directed them to shun the cell phones and not to use them under any circumstances. The Hezbollah leader, unwittingly, pushed the organisations onto the next minefield by forcing its communications to migrate to landlines or to wire-less (Walkie-Talkie-based systems), thus rendering them more susceptible to covert tracking and interceptions. Probably, soon after this warning, which was nothing less than admission of compromise of the security of communication over cellular networks, the Israelis had realized that one of their important sources of intelligence, including pager-sabotage was at risk of being compromised as well. As a result of the persistent tell-tale targeting of the high-value targets by Israel, and in view of the warning by its leader, Hezbollah presumably abandoned operational use of cell phones and switched-over to pagers. Ironically, this transition away from cell phones, impaired their communication capability and made them sitting ducks in face of the composite advanced methods of intercepting the landline and wireless-based communication, that was coupled with the pagers. International press called it as the biggest Counter-Intelligence Failure by Hezbollah, in fact an indirect aspersion towards IRGC, which itself has been confronted with chain of Israeli assaults on its soil and in Syria.
50. The assassination of Yahya Ayyash in Beit al-Lahia in Gaza on 05-Jan-1996, by detonating an explosive-spiked cell phone, was a powerful reminder about the vulnerability of the cellular network, etched in the memories of the resistance groups. It is also possible that Hezbollah had become suspicious of MOSSAD’s infiltration of the communication network, and that the MOSSAD was skimming off the wireless communications of pagers and probably was contemplating hatching some plot to use it for active sabotage. The Israeli strategy was perhaps a modified version of Enigma based operations by Great Britain during WW-II. As the Hezbollah began transition to other means of communications, it would have signalled that the pagers-operation would soon be completing its first life cycle, because it would be a matter of time, that more diverse means of communication would replace it. It is not known that what actions Israel took to lull the rising fears in Hezbollah due to the demolition of their communications, whose shockwaves would have shaken the whole of Axis of Resistance.
51. MOSSAD seems to have very efficiently and successfully played the mind games and gained an edge in the psychological warfare by first manipulating Hezbollah into killing the cell-phone networks by itself and then making it bite the bait of the rigged pagers. There is a possibility that Israel may have had floated the rumours that MOSSAD does not have the ability to monitor the older-technologies and, instead is focusing on latest ones; in this way, nudging Hezbollah or using the push-and-pull technique by forcing them off the grid of cellular phones and dangling attractive sales and supply deals of the pagers before them, a bait which Hezbollah to its own misfortune swallowed hook, line and sinker.
52. The detonating-pagers’ attack may have been a powerful psychological setback for Hezbollah for a moment, but it cannot be considered as a final blow, nor Hezbollah would be decimated by it. As the dust settles down, Hezbollah would try a comeback while its more extreme groups would burrow further deep underground and resort to more lethal hybrid techniques.
53. The pager attack was not a political of publicity gimmick alone but was also conducted by the Israelis as a prelude to a wider scope and actions in the hybrid warfare. The admission by the Japanese firm that the fake copies or lookalikes of its iCOM ICV82S genuine products are available in the market without their knowledge or consent, adds to the possibility of illicit use of these devices by other actors in other theatres. With the ease of precise copying using 3D printers, the threat of rapid proliferation or copycat attacks by more organized terrorist groups and proxies has increased manifold.
54. Creation of such devices and passing them as commercial goods has exposed proliferation of booby-trapped civilian utility goods, which would be contrary to the norms and conventions and are such unlawful. It may be comparable to dropping booby-trapped toys and such items in victims’ backyard. The proliferation of booby-trapped pagers and Walkie-Talkies and their subsequent indiscriminate explosions are being interpreted as industrial sabotage and offense against human rights. Spiking such devices with explosives is like randomly planting IEDs or landmines. The tactics of weaponizing low-tech communication systems and using it as military tactics in civilian environment or in hybrid warfare theatres is a bad precedence and raises complex possibilities of subsequent use by proxies and terrorist groups in disturbed areas. It is also possible, that these modernised remote-controlled IED circuitry could proliferate and improvised to be more lethal IEDs in hands of militants. More hazardous would-be reverse engineering of the devices, and proliferating the technological aspects, for use in other instruments of violence by scrupleless entities. At the same time, rivals of MOSSAD would have to keep looking over their shoulder for a long time, fearing sabotage of their electronic devices, not necessarily pagers alone.
55. There has been criticism about the use of such devices since they are deemed to be illegal under the common restriction of targeting indiscriminately during warfare. On the other hand, with the development of C4ISR concepts and integrating them into the security intelligence realm, it has become a potent tool which can gather intelligence from multiple sensors and with the help of the artificial intelligence, it can be rapidly converted into tangible operational tactics which can be actioned in coordination with the boots on ground. With the facility of having one of the top-of-the-line airborne C4ISR platforms in the form of Oron aircraft operated by Israel, it has stretched and expanded its simultaneously actionable area for acquisition of real-time intelligence across a large geographical swath. It leaves no doubt that this and more-developed models of C4ISR would be at the core of future covert and overt attacks by Israel against its adversaries.
56. Lebanon was considered to be an important destination of the Iranian or Shia Corridor and has a turbulent history. Located on the coast of Mediterranean Sea, it shares its borders with Israel in the South, Syria in North and East, and Cyprus, some 200-miles across the Mediterranean Sea. It is separated from Israel through the boundary (UN-2000 Blue Line) drawn by UN, in year 2000, when Israel withdrew its forces after 22-years of occupation of Southern Lebanon. Earlier, Israel had invaded parts of Lebanon in 1978, when it pushed Palestinian militants to north of the Litani River. Hostilities remain between Lebanon and Israel, and in 2006, Israel and Hezbollah went to war that resulted in death of about 2,000 Lebanese and 165 Israelis. UN had to intercede to bring about a cease fire that continued until 08-Oct-2023, a day after the raid by Hamas in Israel from Gaza Strip. Technically, both Israel and Lebanon are at war .
    56.57. With the recent political dispositions, the Lebanese government were deeply under the influence of Hezbollah that in turn drew its aspirations from Iran. The military or militant arm, described as Jihad Council and several members of Hezbollah have been declared as terrorists by USA and several western countries; the political faction in Lebanon, however, claims that it is non-militant. Lebanon economically devastated by the pandemic, the mighty explosion at Beirut Port on 04-Aug-2020, has found it difficult to shore up finances for the exploration and subsequent delivery of the gas and oil from the claimed Mediterranean Sea gas fields. This economic meltdown, which had come at the heels of the Beirut Port Explosion of 04-Aug-2020, had collapsed the whole financial system of Lebanon, which had its subsequent ramifications in the shape of monumental political instability. With absence of any on-land energy resources, Lebanon is facing crushing shortages of the fuel and energy. Israel has already commenced exploiting and pumping from the gas fields in the vicinity of Lebanese claimed gas fields .
    57.58. The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, that started on 08-Oct-2023, was culminated in a renewed ceasefire, going in effect from 27-Nov-2024, with efforts of the Quintet Committee, comprising France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, USA and Qatar, that had been formed in 2021 in wake of the economic meltdown of Lebanon. USA, France, Lebanon and Israel, was however the main players in signing the cease fire agreement in Nov-2024, whose conditions were to be implemented in the following 60-days. It was agreed that the Israeli military would pull out from Al-Nuqrah and hand it over to the control to Lebanese military by first week of Jan-2025. The Lebanese Military was given the mandate to implement disarming of Hezbollah and enforcing buffer-zone along Southern Lebanon . By the time, the ceasefire was signed, Lebanon had already lost more than 4,000 persons, while hundreds of thousands had been displaced.
    58.59. In 2018, Lebanon had signed an agreement with Cyprus based companies for drilling and exploration of gas and oil in its maritime territories in Mediterranean, including an 850-sq km block, that is claimed both by Israel and Lebanon, and involves Qana and Karish Gas Fields. Lebanon had got the said area demarcated in 2002 while defining its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) . Lebanon had signed an agreement with Cyprus on 17-Jan-2007 demarking the borders of EEZ between both countries and plans to invest in oil, that was subsequently reneged by Cyprus. Cyprus made another agreement with Israel, demarcating fresh EEZ boundaries with it. In Lebanon’s view, Israel had infringed upon Lebanon’s EEZ and deprived it of the 860-km area that now became disputed .
57. Ras al-Naqoura is a scenic Lebanese town, located on the coast of Mediterranean, 3-km from the Lebanese Israeli border. UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is headquartered here since 1978. The town has shot in prominence, with the Lebanese-Israel indirect talks regarding Israel-Lebanon Maritime Border Dispute Talks taking place here since October-2020. It was result of intensive quiet diplomacy by USA, Lebanon and Israel, under auspices of UN. Placing resolution and demarcation of maritime borders of Lebanon and Israel as the starting point in this journey towards a lasting peace, the talks were initiated. The first round of talks took place on 14-Oct-20, participated by Israel, USA, UN and Lebanon. Israel had been complaining that Lebanon has changed its stance atleast seven times over the territorial claim, and each time, it incrementally increases the claim on disputed areas, while independent observers believe that it is the ‘rope-pulling’ going on to increase the stakes, wear out the other-side and gain more benefits.
    59.61. By December 2020, four rounds of talks had been completed, but had remained inconclusive. One of the scheduled meetings of 01-Dec-2020, was postponed by Lebanon, only 48-hours before its scheduled time. Subsequently, on 27-Oct-2022, an agreement was reached between Israel and Lebanon for the resolution of the Israel-Lebanon Maritime Border Dispute with agreeing in principle that Karish Gas field would fall under Israeli control, along with a small part of Qana, a prospective gas field, whereas, remaining Qana would be under Lebanon’s control and it would pay royalties to Israel for any gas extracted from the Israeli side .
    60.62. The Quintet Committee is an informal group comprising of France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United States, and Qatar representatives, which was formed sometime in 2021 in wake of the economic meltdown of Lebanon, was entrusted to oversee the return of the Lebanese back to the villages which were to be vacated by the Israeli army. The Israeli army had pulled-out of the occupied villages of Al-Naqoura in the first week of Jan-2025, leaving behind them village after village in complete shambles. Since 27-Nov-2024, up to 10-Jan-2025, more than 330 airstrikes had been carried out by Israel, while it had completely demolished more than 260 properties in Lebanon. It seems that the existing development of the New-Axis and intensified 5GW is being used to leverage the huge commercial venture in Gaza as proposed by USA’s President. If we consider as a milestone objective of the systematic Hybrid Warfare waged against Palestinians of West Gaza, then we find the assassinations, the explosions, the threats, establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel including Abraham Accords, co-opting India in the New-Axis, and the recent conflict, to be a well-orchestrated economic strategic script written by super-powers. USA, in step with Israel, and some other allies, has been incrementally increasing its pressures on Hezbollah’s allies in Lebanon, and has already designated several Amal Party politicians as terrorists and placed them under sanctions.
    61.63. Israel had very clearly been trying to linger-on and stretch the hostilities until Nov-2024 USA Presidential elections, and then subsequently to the swearing-in of the President of USA scheduled for 20-Jan-2025, so that Israel garners more energy and strength for pressurizing Lebanon. Among the several strategical axes that Israel tends to grind with Lebanon is creation of a buffer zone by pushing the Hezbollah 10-miles deeper into Lebanon, away from the Israeli border and also to enforce a land swap between Lebanon and Israel so that the border disputes can be resolved on Israeli terms. Israel was, before the on-going war, prepared to swap the land twice the area currently held by Israel by altering the characteristics of the kibbutz in that area. There are several other issues linked to Lebanon and Israel’s border demarcation and include disputes related to Sheba Farms, the Kafar Shuba Hills, and the Rajar village, which will come on table sooner than later. The border point of the Blue Line, or Point B1, that overlooks the Israeli tourist site of Rosh Hanikra, is also an issue which Israel wants to be resolved. Yet another dispute of kibbutz Misagav Am, in the Upper Galilee regional consul area, is also lingering on, which will need resolutions .
    62.64. Among the several conditions that had been agreed for the ceasefire, one was that the Hezbollah would be moved to north of the Litani River, providing sufficient buffer for the security and safety of the Israelis who live in the border areas, and had earlier evacuated because of the conflict situation. The Litani River had been the scene of previous conflict as well, when Israel had conducted Operation Litani in 1978 and had invaded the southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, but had withdrawn after several months of maintaining the occupation, and after the intervention of the United Nations and the positioning of UNIFIL. Due to various factors including allegations that Hezbollah has not met the conditions of the ceasefire, Israeli pullout from Lebanon was postponed to 18-Feb-2025.
    63.65. On 08-Dec-2024, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia after a blitzkrieg attack by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled city after city and captured Damascus. This signalled the dissection of the Iranian corridor which was seen as a supply line for the Hezbollah passing through Syria and pulled the rug from beneath the feet of the Iranians. The Iranians had painstakingly, in past 13-year rule of Bashar al-Assad, managed to develop the Iranian Corridor, sometimes also known as Shia Corridor, that ran through Iran, Iraq, Syria to Lebanon and was not only deemed as a challenge to the Arab states but was also considered as a direct threat to Israel. With Syria, collapsed the supply chain of arms and ammunition originating from Iran and to Hezbollah. With this setback and the subsequent crushing of Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip under brutal Israeli force that came with full backing of United States, gathered further momentum for Gaza ceasefire. Hezbollah was also beaten and gasping its last breaths, as the Lebanese cease fire was gaining traction. The hollow warnings by Iran and its proxies followed only by a weak response by them against Israel have further exposed the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of Iran and its allies. The overarching security umbrella of the USA and its allies upon Israel have literally made it formidable against any potential Iranian-motivated response. Collectively, the situation was a grim reminder about increasing vulnerability of Iran.
    64.66. Looking back at the trail of the tracking and assassination of high-value targets, and keeping in purview the bombing of Iranian embassy in Syria on 01-Apr-2024, and subsequent assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 31-Jul-2024, leaves no doubt that not only Israel is using the superb techno-intelligence to eliminate its targeted enemies, but is also attempting to provoke and humiliate Iran into retaliation, so that it could be used a plausible justification to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. With the tremendous pressures being built up against Iran, at the beginning of the second term of President Donald Trump, Iran is walking a tightrope amidst loud noises of war-drums forecasting coming of an impending war. As the menacing clouds of a war darken the skies of Iran and Middle East, a meeting between Russian and American Presidents is on cards in Saudi Arabia, perhaps, fate will grant time to history to postpone the battle-cries till then, or is another Camp David Agreement in the making.
    65.67. Hybrid Warfare in modern day is complex affair that involves all faculties of a state, and requires customized addressing of each and every threat, challenge or risk respectively. Such management requires high degree of inter-state and intra-state synergies, coordination and technological support. By pulverizing the adversary’s communication system, Israel had acquired the breakthrough to bulldoze through the adversaries’ ranks and files and give it a final putsch. Was it the massive intelligence that gave Israel the confidence to draw Hamas into a trap of carrying out a raid inside Israel on 07-Oct-2023, except that some unexpected veering of the conceived course of the raid went haywire, spinning the whole operation momentarily out of control? Was it a later development to synchronise it with the Oath Taking of the incoming US President on 20-Jan-2025? Was this part of a larger conspiracy to seize the launching point of East Med pipeline, to which the PA had been a signatory, but was controlled by Hamas? This is a debate, that perhaps would be occupying plenty of media spaces in coming days.
    *** The author is former Director General Intelligence Bureau, Pakistan.