- Hundreds of pagers throughout Lebanon were detonated on Tuesday.
- An attack of this scale likely required months of planning, an arms expert told BI.
- The attack also shows a lack of oversight of global supply chains, experts said.
The Tuesday attack in Lebanon, where hundreds of pagers used by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah simultaneously detonated, points to a highly sophisticated operation that likely required months of planning and an infiltration of a global supply chain, experts told Business Insider.
At least 2,800 people were injured and 12 killed, The Associated Press reported, citing the Lebanese Health Ministry. The pagers exploded in Lebanon around Tuesday late afternoon. On Wednesday, a more limited attack involving walkie-talkies and solar equipment that exploded injured hundreds more and killed at least 20 people, according to the AP report, which cited the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Israel has not commented or claimed responsibility for the attack. US and other officials who were briefed on the operation and who spoke on the condition of anonymity told The New York Times that Israel was behind the attack and infiltrated a batch of Taiwanese-branded pagers in order to plant explosives inside the device.
Spokespeople for the Israel Defense Forces and the US Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
An attack of this size requires a massive amount of technical capabilities involving intelligence gathering and months of planning, a national security expert and arms expert told BI.
"The scale of this operation suggests a complex supply-chain attack executed by a state actor," N.R. Jenzen-Jones, a director at the Armament Research Services, told BI. "This would have required a significant investment in terms of manpower and other resources, and likely months of planning."
And if Israel was indeed behind the attack, as US officials have said, then it comes as no surprise from a country that has already proven its technical prowess, Sean McFate, a national security and foreign policy expert at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, told BI.
"Israel is a very tech-savvy state with its own 'Wadi Valley,' as they put it," McFate said.
Supply-chain experts also told BI that the attack showcases how vulnerabilities in global supply chains are often overlooked and can be exploited in warfare.
"The fact that explosives were implanted in the pagers before reaching Hezbollah shows the challenges of securing electronics sourcing, especially with international shipments," Robert Khachatryan, CEO of Freight Right Global Logistics, told BI.
Images online appear to show that the pagers in the attack had branding from Gold Apollo, a company based in Taiwan, NBC News reported. The company told the outlet in a statement that a Hungary-based entity called BAC Consulting was authorized to use Gold Apollo's branding and that the "design and manufacturing of the prodcuts are entirely handled by BAC."
Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, the chief executive of BAC, denied making the pagers in a statement to NBC News and said that she was "just the intermediate."
Gold Apollo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Business Insider was not able to reach BAC Consulting for comment. The company's website appeared to be down as of Wednesday evening.
Jenzen-Jones said that while supply chain attacks are often thought of in the context of cyberattacks, "sabotaging enemy supply lines has a long history in warfare."
In 2012, The New York Times published a story about a US-run covert program for booby-trapping ammunition intended to be used by the Taliban.
The size of Tuesday's attack in Lebanon and the targeting of an object like a pager rather than weapons is what makes this operation different, Jenzen-Jones said.
"For an attack of this sort — one using modified everyday objects to deliver potentially lethal effects in a targeted fashion — the scale of the operation is unprecedented," he said.