Taiwan firm denies making pagers that were reportedly used by Israel in Lebanon blasts

A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo months before the Tuesday explosions. Images of destroyed pagers showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo.

Taipei: Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo said on Wednesday the pagers that were used in the detonations in Lebanon on Tuesday were not made by it but by a company called BAC based in Budapest, which has a licence to use its brand. This came after reports emerged that Israel had reportedly installed explosives on Taiwan-made pagers used by armed militant group Hezbollah months before the blasts that killed nine and wounded nearly 3,000 people on Tuesday.

Images of destroyed pagers analysed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. However, the firm has denied making the pagers that exploded on Tuesday.

"The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,' Gold Apollo founder and president, Hsu Ching-Kuang, told reporters at the company's offices in the northern Taiwanese city of New Taipei on Wednesday. The company said that the AR-924 model was produced and sold by BAC. "We only provide brand trademark authorisation and have no involvement in the design or manufacturing of this product," it added.

How did Israel manage to install explosives?

Hsu earlier said that the firm with the licence was based in Europe but later declined to comment on BAC's location. Hezbollah fighters began using pagers in the belief they would be able to evade Israeli tracking of their locations and communications. Hsu said he did not know how the pagers could have been rigged to explode.

Hsu further said Gold Apollo was also a victim of the incident. "We may not be a large company but we are a responsible one," he said. "This is very embarrassing." Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it was carrying out a "security and scientific investigation" into the causes of the blasts. Several sources told Reuters that the plot to install explosives in Taiwan-made pagers had been several months in making. 

"The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It's very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner," the source said. The source said 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.

Another security source told Reuters that up to three grams of explosives were hidden in the new pagers and had gone "undetected" by Hezbollah for months. "This would easily be the biggest counterintelligence failure that Hezbollah has had in decades," said Jonathan Panikoff, the former US deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East.

'Biggest security breach'

Hezbollah has blamed Israel for the pager blasts and promised that it will get 'its fair punishment', according to a statement released by the militant group on Tuesday. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about the detonations. It was also reported that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was harmed in the spree of pager blasts, but a senior source refuted the reports.

Multiple media reported that the thousands of pagers exploded after receiving a "cryptic message". If the claims were true, it would be the most advanced warfare against the Hezbollah group. A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the "biggest security breach" the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.

The incident comes at a time of heightened tensions between Lebanon and Israel. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been clashing near-daily for more than 11 months against the backdrop of war between Israel and Hezbollah ally Hamas in Gaza. The clashes have killed hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border. 

(with agency input)

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