Soldier of Fortune Magazine The Journal of Professional Adventurers
by Susan Katz Keating
The two companies issued denials as questions center on how the explosions were triggered, and by whom.
A Taiwan company whose pagers have been tied to the deadly attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon says the pagers were produced and sold by a Budapest-based partner company that denies making the pagers.
At least 12 people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by members of Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, blew up simultaneously on September 17 across Lebanon. Additionally on September 18, thousands of handheld radios or walkie-talkies exploded in Lebanon, killing at least 14 people and injuring hundreds.
READ MORE: Hezbollah Doesn’t Know Why Pagers Exploded Across Lebanon; Blames Israel
The two companies issued the denials as questions center on how the explosions were triggered, and by whom.
Images of destroyed pagers appear to connect them with Gold Apollo in Taiwan.
Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching-Kuang said the pagers carried the company logo, but actually were made by BAC Consulting in Hungary.
That company is authorized to “use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,” Gold Apollo said in a statement.
“The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,” Hsu told reporters today in Taiwan.
A spokeswoman for BAC, however, told NBC News that her company did not make the devices.
“I don’t make the pagers,” Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono told the news outlet. “I am just the intermediate. I think you got it wrong.”
During a visit to company headquarters in Budapest, the RFE/RL’s Hungarian Service found only a scant presence.
The company “appears to have only one employee working from an empty office that offers a range of services but not pager manufacturing,” the news service wrote.
It remains unclear how the explosions were triggered.
Early speculation centered on a hack that caused the pager batteries to overheat and blow up; but, according to explosives experts on active duty in the US military, this is not likely.
“An explosive material was involved,” according to one Explosives Ordnance Disposal specialist. “Something that was inside the pagers.”
Security sources told Reuters that Israel’s Mossad planted explosives inside the pagers several months ago. If so, this would point toward Hezbollah being deeply penetrated, one security source told Soldier of Fortune.
One official from Hezbollah, which acts as a proxy for Iran, called the attack the group’s “biggest security breach” in its history.
Hezbollah blamed the attacks on Israel, which has not commented on whether it was involved.
The Hezbollah terror group began using pagers after members were ordered to stop using cellphones amid concerns that they could be intercepted and tracked by Israeli intelligence.
Susan Katz Keating is the publisher and editor in chief of Soldier of Fortune.
