Batteries in walkie-talkie bombs ‘were laced with explosive compound’

The batteries of the walkie-talkies used by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that blew up this week were laced with a highly explosive compound known as PETN, a Lebanese source familiar with the device’s components has claimed. The shockingly coordinated and devastatingly effective attacks, widely seen as the work of Israel’s Mossad secret service, injured thousands of militants – not to mention many civilians – on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Security officials and experts theorised earlier this week that Israeli spies had managed to infiltrate the supply chain and plant a small quantity of high explosives inside the communication devices before they were delivered to Lebanon some time this spring. The assessment of the Lebanese security source appears to have confirmed the speculation. The source explained to Reuters that the way the explosive material was integrated into the battery packs of the halcyon communications devices made it extremely difficult to detect.

PETN, short for Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, is a widely used chemical explosive that shares many similarities with nitroglycerin. It is typically used in detonating cords and directional charges, and is deployed in military operations in the form of weapons like the Semtex plastic explosive. The substance has two main properties which make it a highly attractive option for both military and industrial use. Firstly, PETN boasts an extremely high detonation velocity and is capable of blasting shrapnel contained in munitions at speeds of up to 8,000 metres per second.

Such force means PETN explosives can create a shattering effect, ripping their targets apart while also dealing a powerful concussive effect. Secondly, it is a relatively stable substance and very reliable. When preserved and stored correctly, it can be deployed in all manner of conditions. Ironically, it was Hezbollah’s fear of the security risks of modern technology that allowed Israel to target the group’s members with PETN.

Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in February declared that smartphones – which are far more difficult to physically tamper with – were ‘more dangerous than Israeli spies’ because they could be used to track their users, gather intelligence and conduct cyberattacks. In a televised speech on February 13, Nasrallah sternly ordered his followers and supporters to break, bury or lock their phones in an iron box, so they could be replaced by pagers and radios. Days later, Hezbollah placed an order for thousands of units of the legacy communication devices. The exact method by which the pagers were sabotaged remains unverified.

But a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters earlier this week that it appeared the booby-trapped devices distributed to thousands of Hezbollah members had been modified ‘at the production level.’ ‘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. Thousands of the pagers and radios exploded on Tuesday and Wednesday when a coded message was sent to them. It appears the code caused the devices to beep or vibrate, encouraging its user to press a button to cancel the alert and in doing so activate the detonator.

Munitions experts said that videos and eyewitness descriptions of the blasts seem to support the notion that the devices were laced with a small quantity of high explosives. A former British Army bomb disposal officer explained that an explosive device has five main components: A container, a battery, a triggering device, a detonator and an explosive charge. ‘A pager has three of those already,’ explained the ex-officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he now works as a consultant with clients on the Middle East. ‘You would only need to add the detonator and the charge.’

‘Looking at the video, the size of the detonation is similar to that caused by an electric detonator alone or one that incorporates an extremely small, high-explosive charge,’ added Sean Moorhouse, a former British Army officer and explosive ordinance disposal expert. Security experts, regional analysts and military officials have almost unanimously pointed fingers at Mossad and elements of the Israeli military, arguing that no other actor has the capability nor the motive to carry out such an attack.

Former Israeli Intelligence official and regional analyst Avi Melamed told MailOnline: ‘Hezbollah regressed back to these devices thinking that these devices would be safer for its combatants to use instead of phones which could be GPS targeted. In one sweeping attack, with both significant operational and psychological ramifications, these very low-tech devices were used against them, deepening the stress and embarrassment on its leaders.’

He added: ‘The characteristics of the incident indicate the use of advanced technologies for disruption, communication system takeovers, and remote operations with an exceptionally high level of synchronisation. The accumulating evidence suggests that the devices were handled in advance, not through malicious software. While Israel has not taken, and is unlikely to take, responsibility for the attack, there is no doubt in regional discourse that Israel is behind it.’

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