Who and where were the pager devices that exploded on Tuesday across Lebanon made? According to reports, Taiwanese company Gold Apollo has confirmed that it it had authorized the use of its trademarked branding on the pagers that were involved in the blasts that rocked Beirut and other parts of the Arab country. However, they were not made in Taiwan but by a Hungarian firm called BAC Consulting KFT. According to reports, the Budapest-based organisation was also responsible for selling the devices.
ALSO READ | How does a pager work? Here's why Hezbollah used low-tech devices instead of smartphones
According to an official release by Gold Apollo, its deal with BAC Consulting KFT allowed the latter to use their brand trademark on AR-924 pager model in designated regions. Confirming that it was AR-924 pagers that exploded in Beirut, Gold Apollo said that the design and manufacturing of the devices was the responsibility of BAC alone.
The pagers involved in the blast were entirely different in designs used by Gold Apollo, the firm's founder and CEO Hsu Ching-kuan reportedly said on Wednesday. Distancing the company from the incident in which over 2,300 people were hurt, Hsu Ching-kuan mentioned that the chips found in the exploded devices wer not the ones used by Gold Apollo in its own models.
ALSO READ | How Israel's Mossad planted explosives in Hezbollah devices and detonated them remotely
"There was nothing in those devices that we had manufactured or exported to BAC," CBS News reported Hsu as saying about his company's three-year-long deal with BAC Consulting KFT.
Pager blasts shock Hezbollah, Lebanon
Thousands of Hezbollah cadres including fighters and leaders were targeted in a massive and meticulously planned attack involving pagers that exploded, killing at least nine, injuring over 2,750 people and critically injuring more than 200. The extensive explosions signal a new form of offensive action in the annals of modern warfare. Reports said the devices heated up before exploding. The Ministry of Public Health requested that “all citizens who own wireless communication devices stay away from them.”
FULL REPORT | Pagers explode across Lebanon, many Hezbollah fighters killed, thousands injured
In order to escape the sophisticated Israeli electronic and cyber warfare dragnet, Hezbollah militants had resorted to using pagers as the main means to communicate as they cannot capture sound, don’t have cameras and leave very low digital signatures.
A possible explanation is that devices containing explosives were introduced into the Hezbollah networks, which were then triggered at the same time through a sophisticated command and control channel.