Reflections on "Operation Grim Beeper" (what a name!)

 

A Twitter thread offers some interesting perspectives on the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon.

A few thoughts on Operation Grim Beeper.

1) This is one of the most astonishing intelligence operations in history. It is a reworking of the story of the Trojan Horse for the digital age, and it deserves to become nearly as legendary as its iconic predecessor. If we are not utterly astounded, it is because we have seen too many James Bond and Black Mirror movies for our own good.

In real life, operations like this just don’t happen. It is at least four operations in one.

First, the Israelis thoroughly mapped Hezbollah’s supply chain.

Second, they invented a special explosive charge small enough to be inserted inside a handheld device, sophisticated enough to be remotely activated, big enough to do real harm, and yet not so prominent physically or electronically to call attention to itself.

Third, the Israelis turned themselves into a big enough link in Hezbollah’s procurement network to take physical control of the devices and rig them.

Fourth, they activated the charges simultaneously and across a very wide geographic area.

If any one of these sub-operations had been botched, the operation as a whole would have fizzled. Who else in the world could pull off such an imaginative, technically sophisticated and audacious plot? 

2) It is the first mass targeted killing in history. Every one of the thousands of persons killed or maimed was selected individually, yet they were hit at the same moment. The great genius of the operation is that the Israelis relied on Hezbollah itself to select their targets for them. I can’t think of another case like this where the attackers just sat back and let the enemy perform a key part of their work for them. If we map the attacked men we map Hezbollah’s org chart, including the blinded Iranian ambassador to Lebanon who is an IRGC officer. 

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

To make matters worse for Hezbollah and Iran, the Daily Mail revealed that Israel set up an entire supply chain for the devices.

The Israeli secret service didn't just tamper with the deadly Hezbollah pagers -- they made them from scratch, having set up a complex web of shell companies across Europe, it was claimed today.

Initially it was suspected that Mossad had managed to intercept and plant tiny bombs in a shipment of the pagers headed for the Iranian-backed terror group in Lebanon after thousands of people were injured and dozens killed.

But now it appears that the Israelis set up front companies across Europe to manufacture the pagers themselves, embedding small amounts of PETN explosive inside, ready to be detonated by a coded message.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any role in the explosions, but 12 current and former defence and intelligence officials told the New York Times that the Israelis were behind it, describing the operation as 'complex and long'.

Following the series of explosions, Lebanese civilians have been living in terror as they fear that the 'technological war' could be a precursor to a full-scale conflict. 

. . .

According to the New York Times, one of the Mossad shell companies was B.A.C. Consulting in Budapest, Hungary, set up to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo.

Gold Apollo's chair, Hsu Ching-kuang, told journalists Wednesday the firm has had a licensing agreement with BAC for the past three years.

'According to the cooperation agreement, we authorize BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,' Gold Apollo said in a statement.

At least two other shell companies, one in Sofia headed by a Norwegian businessman were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.

It is not known how involved in or aware of the ultimate plan were the legitimate business people running the companies, such as British-educated physicist Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono, who has denied any knowledge of the plot.

B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But for Mossad the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary.

Again, more at the link.

This entire operation was, in intelligence terms, a work of genius.  It's going to be studied as a prime example of tradecraft, deception and sabotage for literally generations to come, by intelligence services all over the world.  I had some training and experience in that field during my military service (very little, compared to active intelligence agents, but enough to be able to support certain operations), and from that limited background, I can only shake my head in awe at the scope and professionalism of this scheme.  Perhaps best of all from Israel's perspective, Iran - which financially supports Hezbollah - would have paid for these devices . . . so Israel made Iran pay for the weapons used to disrupt its own ally's operations!  Talk about sheer chutzpah!

Peter