SPREADING THE JOY

Thousands of the latest model of pager have just exploded simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria, all of which were owned exclusively by Hezbollah members, shortly after an assassination attempt by Hezbollah on a former top Israeli security official was thwarted by the Shin Bet Israeli security force.

There are hundreds, possibly a thousand injuries, many of them very serious and some of them critical. The Iranian envoy in Lebanon was hurt and at least one death is reported. A review of tech sites commenting on this shows general agreement that the tiny batteries in these pagers could not have generated the explosions, that this is a “supply chain” attack wherein the explosives and circuit modifications necessary to detonate them would have been inserted prior to delivery to Hezbollah for distribution.

No proof has been offered that Israel was behind this, but every possible finger is being pointed at them as the most likely culprit.

This puts Hezbollah in a serious bind. Now they have no pagers. They’re already afraid to use cell phones, so their ability to maintain communication with each other and coordinate attacks is severely compromised, and will be for some time yet. They’ll have to get new pagers, and they’ll have to open every one of them to make sure they’re not rigged, and what if they explode upon opening? That would be a logical move.

It’s one thing to terrorize people by shooting rockets at them. It’s another thing entirely to terrorize them by exploding their most trusted devices, that they rely upon more than any other, and cause them great harm. This is true terror, this is creating paranoia that strikes deep into the heart, all those who have suffered from these blasts and survived will fear to ever put a pager or any other comm device next to their head again and they’d be right to do so.

This would make me not want to be a member of Hezbollah anymore. The injured certainly have an excuse to bow out. There’s a video up of a man in a marketplace with a heavy looking bag on a strap, hanging by his right hip. BANG, the pager blows up, the bag blows apart, pieces of paper fly through the air and the man falls down and lays there, screaming and screaming.

Now imagine you’re holding your pager in your hand when it does that. You won’t own that hand anymore.

This was a master stroke and it may not stop those in Lebanon from continuing to scheme on ways to harm Israel, but it should sure give them pause because now they know that nothing is safe. Anything they do to communicate with each other is probably compromised, could possibly kill them. No wonder the Israelis are so confident of winning a war against them.