by The Cradle News Staff at The Cradle
The dual terror attacks that rocked Lebanon this week, killing dozens and injuring thousands, were the result of a “complex and long in the making” Israeli operation, according to 12 current and former defense and intelligence officials who spoke with the New York Times (NYT).
“Even before [Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan] Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer,” the NYT report states, referring to Hungary-based BAC Consulting.
The shell company served as a front to manufacture thousands of pagers on behalf of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo that were acquired by the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah earlier this year. “At least two other shell companies were created to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers,” the report states.
“BAC did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN,” three intelligence officers who spoke with the NYT are quoted as saying.
On Thursday, Budapest announced that the explosive-laden pagers were “never” in the country.
“Hungarian authorities have established that the company in question is a trading-intermediary company,…
Continue Reading