AFPThousands of pagers and radio equipment exploded in two separate incidents in Lebanon, injuring thousands and killing at least 37 people, but details of how the operation was carried out are still being pieced together.
Both Lebanon and Hezbollah, whose members and communications systems have come under attack, blame Israel – although Israel has yet to comment.
The BBC followed the trail from Taiwan to Japan, Hungary, Israel and back to Lebanon.
Here are the unanswered questions.
How are pagers compromised?
Some early speculation suggested the pager might have been the target of a sophisticated hacking attack that caused it to explode. But this theory was quickly dismissed by experts.
Experts say that in order to cause such massive damage, they were likely rigged with explosives before falling into Hezbollah’s hands.
Images of the pager’s wreckage show the logo of a small Taiwanese electronics manufacturer: Gold Apollo.
The BBC visited the company’s offices, located in a large business park in an unassuming suburb of Taipei.
The company’s founder, Hsu Ching-Kuang, seemed shocked. He denied the business had anything to do with the operation.
“You look at the pictures of Lebanon,” he told reporters outside his company’s offices. “They don’t have any ‘Made in Taiwan’ markings on them, these pagers are not made by us!”
Instead, he mentioned a Hungarian company: BAC Consulting.
Mr. Xu said that three years ago, he licensed the Gold Apollo trademark to BAC, allowing them to use the Gold Apollo name on their pagers.
He said money transfers from BAC were “very strange” and there were problems with payments from the Middle East.
What does a Hungarian company have to do with this?
The BBC came to BAC Consulting’s registered office, which is located in a residential area of the Hungarian capital Budapest.
The address appears to be shared by 12 other companies – no one in the building could tell us anything about BAC Consulting.
Hungarian officials said the company, first incorporated in 2022, was just a “trading intermediary with no manufacturing or operational sites in the country.”
A BAC brochure posted on LinkedIn lists eight organizations it claims to have worked with, including the UK Department for International Development (DfID).
The UK Foreign Office – which has taken over the responsibilities of the Department for International Development – told the BBC it was investigating. But based on initial conversations, the company said it had no relationship with BAC.
BAC’s website lists a CEO and founder – Cristiana Bársony-Arcidiacono.
The BBC made repeated attempts to contact Ms Basoni-Arcidiacono but was unable to contact her.
However, she did reportedly say in an interview with NBC News: “I don’t make pagers. I’m just the middleman.”
So who is the real man behind BAC Consulting?
The New York Times reported The company is actually a front for Israeli intelligence agencies.
The newspaper quoted three Israeli officials as saying that two other shell companies were set up to help hide the identities of those who actually produced the pagers: Israeli intelligence officials.
The BBC has not been able to independently verify these reports, but we do know that Bulgarian authorities have now begun investigating another company linked to BAC.
Bulgarian broadcaster bTV reported on Thursday that 1.6 million euros ($1.8 million; £1.3 million) linked to attacks on devices in Lebanon passed through Bulgaria and was then sent to Hungary.
How is radio equipment compromised?
The origin of the radio equipment that exploded in the second wave of attacks is unclear.
We know that at least some of the ones that exploded were the IC-V82 models produced by the Japanese company ICOM.
Security sources at the Reuters news agency said the equipment was purchased by Hezbollah five months ago.
Earlier, a sales executive at Icom’s U.S. subsidiary told The Associated Press that the radio equipment that exploded in Lebanon appeared to be knock-off products not produced by the company, adding that counterfeit versions were easy to find online.
It took the BBC a few seconds to discover that the Icom IC-V82 was for sale on the online market.
ICOM said in a statement that it had stopped producing and selling the model nearly a decade ago, in October 2014, and said it had also stopped producing the batteries required for the model.
The company says it does not outsource production overseas and that all radios are made at a factory in western Japan.
Icom director Yoshiki Enomoyo said photos of damage around the battery compartments of the exploded walkie-talkies suggested they may have contained explosives, Kyodo news agency reported.
How do these devices detonate?
Footage showed victims reaching into their pockets seconds before the device exploded, causing chaos in streets, shops and homes across the country.
Lebanese authorities concluded that the devices were detonated through “electronic messages” sent to them, according to a letter from Lebanon’s mission to the United Nations seen by Reuters.
The New York Times quoted U.S. officials as saying that the pager received a message that appeared to be from Hezbollah’s leadership before the explosion. The messages appeared to trigger the devices instead, the outlet reported.
We don’t yet know what messages were sent to the radio equipment.
Are other devices compromised?
This is the question that many people in Lebanon are now asking – paranoid that other devices, cameras, mobile phones or laptops may also be rigged with explosives.
The Lebanese army has been using remote-controlled bomb disposal robots to carry out controlled explosions on the streets of Beirut.
BBC staff in Lebanon were stopped and told not to use mobile phones or cameras.
“Everyone is panicking… We don’t know if we can be around laptops and phones. Everything seems dangerous at the moment and no one knows what to do,” a woman named Jida told the BBC Correspondent.
Why is the attack happening now?
There are several theories as to why the devices exploded this week.
For one, Israel has chosen this moment to send a devastating message to Hezbollah, which follows nearly a year of escalating cross-border hostilities, with Hezbollah launching attacks on northern Israel the day after the Hamas attack on October 7. or its surrounding areas.
Second, Israel did not intend to implement the plan at this time, but was forced to implement it because it was worried that the conspiracy would be exposed.
According to US media Axios, the original plan was to use pager attacks as the opening of an all-out war to try to weaken Hezbollah fighters.
However, reports said that after Israel learned that Hezbollah was suspicious, it chose to launch an attack in advance.
