獨家 - 以色列笨重的傳呼機如何愚弄真主黨 (1/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line picked up the following:

Exclusive-How Israel’s bulky pager fooled Hezbollah (1/2)

Wed, October 16, 2024 at 6:39 p.m. GMT+8·8 min read

By Maya Gebeily, James Pearson and David Gauthier-Villars

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The batteries inside the weaponised pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year, part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles' heel.

The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers, and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters.

To overcome the weakness - the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product - they created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters review of web archives shows.

The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story, both described here for the first time, shed light on the execution of a years-long operation which has struck unprecedented blows against Israel's Iran-backed Lebanese foe and pushed the Middle East closer to a regional war.

A thin, square sheet with six grams of white pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) plastic explosive was squeezed between two rectangular battery cells, according to the Lebanese source and photos.

The remaining space between the battery cells could not be seen in the photos but was occupied by a strip of highly flammable material that acted as the detonator, the source said.

This three-layer sandwich was inserted in a black plastic sleeve, and encapsulated in a metal casing roughly the size of a match box, the photos showed.

The assembly was unusual because it did not rely on a standard miniaturised detonator, typically a metallic cylinder, the source and two bomb experts said. All three spoke on conditions of anonymity.

Without any metal components, the material used to trigger detonation had an edge: like the plastic explosives, it was not detected by X-ray.

Upon receiving the pagers in February, Hezbollah looked for the presence of explosives, two people familiar with the matter said, putting them through airport security scanners to see if they triggered alarms. Nothing suspicious was reported.

The devices were likely set up to generate a spark within the battery pack, enough to light the detonating material, and trigger the sheet of PETN to explode, said the two bomb experts, to whom Reuters showed the pager-bomb design.

Since explosives and wrapping took about a third of the volume, the battery pack carried a fraction of the power consistent with its 35 gram weight, two battery experts said.

"There is a significant amount of unaccounted for mass," said Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium batteries at Britain’s Newcastle University.

At some point, Hezbollah noticed the battery was draining faster than expected, the Lebanese source said. However, the issue did not appear to raise major security concerns - the group was still handing its members the pagers hours before the attack.

On Sept. 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds, in most cases after the devices beeped, indicating an incoming message.

Among the victims rushed to hospital, many had eye injuries, missing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens, indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation, Reuters witnesses saw. In total, the pager attack, and a second on the following day that activated weaponized walkie-talkies, killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400.

Two Western security sources said Israeli intelligence agency Mossad spearheaded the pager and walkie-talkie attacks.

Reuters could not establish where the devices were manufactured. The office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has authority over Mossad, did not respond to a request for comment.

Lebanon’s Information Ministry and a spokesperson for Hezbollah declined to comment for this article.

Israel has neither denied nor confirmed a role. The day after the attacks Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant praised Mossad's "very impressive" results in comments that were widely interpreted in Israel as a tacit acknowledgement of the agency's participation.

U.S. officials have said they were not informed of the operation in advance.

(to be continued)

Translation

獨家 - 以色列笨重的傳呼機如何愚弄真主黨 (1/2)

貝魯特（路透社） - 今年年初抵達黎巴嫩的武器化傳呼機內的電池是以色列消滅真主黨陰謀的一部份，它具有強大的欺騙性和致命弱點。

據一位對傳呼機有第一手了解的黎巴嫩消息人士透露，以及路透社看到的電池組拆解照片, 製造傳呼機的特工設計了一個電池，裡面隱藏著少量但威力強大的塑膠炸藥, 和X射線看不見的新型雷管。

路透社對網路檔案的審查顯示，為了克服陰謀弱點 - 這種龐大的新產品缺乏可信的背景故事 - 他們創建了虛假的在線商店、頁面和帖子，能欺騙真主黨的盡職調查。

傳呼機炸彈的隱密設計和電池精心構建的掩護故事（這兩者都是首次在此描述）揭示了長達數年的行動的執行情況，該以色列行動對由伊朗支持的黎巴嫩敵人進行了前所未有的打擊，並將中東推向地區戰爭。

根據黎巴嫩消息人士和照片，一塊薄薄的方形薄片被擠壓在兩個長方形電池之間，其中含有六克白色季戊四醇四硝酸酯（PETN）塑膠炸藥。

消息人士稱，照片中看不到電池之間的剩餘空間，它被一條充當雷管的高度易燃材料佔據。

照片顯示，這種三層三明治被插入黑色塑膠套中，並封裝在火柴盒大小的金屬外殼中。

消息人士和兩名炸彈專家表示，這次組裝很不尋常，因為它不依賴標準的小型雷管，通常是金屬圓筒。三人均要求匿名。

由於沒有任何金屬成分，用於引發爆炸的材料有一個優勢：與塑膠炸藥一樣，它無法被 X 射線檢測到。

兩名知情人士稱，真主黨在二月收到傳呼機後，檢查是否有爆炸物，並透過機場安全掃描儀檢查是否會觸發警報。沒有收到有可疑的報告。

兩名看過路透社展示傳呼機炸彈設計的炸彈專家表示，這些裝置可能會在電池組內產生火花，足以點燃起爆材料，並引發 PETN 片爆炸。

兩位電池專家表示，由於炸藥和包裝材料約佔體積的三分之一，因此電池組的電量僅為其 35 克重量的一小部分。

英國Newcastle大學鋰電池專家Paul Christensen表示：“這佔無法解釋的重量的一大部份。”

黎巴嫩消息人士稱，在某個時候，真主黨注意到電池的電量消耗速度比預期的要快。然而，這個問題似乎並沒有引起重大的安全問題 - 該組織在襲擊發生前幾個小時仍在向其成員提供傳呼機。

9月17日，貝魯特南郊和真主黨其他據點的數千台傳呼機同時爆炸，大多數情況下是在設備發出嘟嘟聲後爆炸，顯示有訊息傳入。

路透社目擊者看到，在被送往醫院的受害者中，許多人眼睛受傷、手指缺失或腹部出現大洞，這表明他們在爆炸時靠近這些裝置。總的來說，傳呼機攻擊, 以及接著在翌日啟動的武器化對講機爆炸共造成 39 人死亡、3,400 多人受傷。

兩名西方保安消息人士稱，以色列情報機構Mossad帶領這次用傳呼機及對講機來進行攻擊。

路透社無法確定這些裝置的生產地。對Mossad擁有掌控權的以色列總理內塔尼亞胡辦公室沒有回應置評請求。

黎巴嫩資訊部和真主黨發言人拒絕對本文發表評論。

以色列既沒有否認也沒有確認其角色。襲擊發生第二天，以色列國防部長加蘭特在評論中稱讚Mossad取得了「非常令人印象深刻」的成果，這些評論在以色列被廣泛解讀為默認該機構的參與。

美國官員表示，他們事先並未獲悉此行動。

（待續）