Russian FSB Vet Doesn’t Buy US ‘Fairy Tales’ That Pager Attack Took 15 Years to Set Up: Here's Why
17:07 GMT 20.09.2024 (Updated: 17:17 GMT 20.09.2024)
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A US intelligence source has said that the suspected Mossad “supply chain interdiction” operation behind this week’s explosive pager attacks in Lebanon took 15 years or longer to plan. Sputnik asked FSB counterterrorism vet Andrei Popov how the attack was pulled off, and what Hezbollah could do to prevent it from recurring.
An intelligence source told ABC News on Thursday that Israel planned Tuesday and Wednesday’s exploding electronic device attacks over many years, using shell companies and “multiple layers” of intelligence and assets fronting as a legitimate company, with some of those involved said to have no knowledge of whom they were really working for. Sources further suggested that explosives were planted on the tampered pagers alongside a remote trigger switch.
Separately, three sources said to have been briefed on the operation told the New York Times that Israeli intelligence had set up at least three shell companies for the pagers’ production, including the now outed Budapest-based BAC Consulting.
“Such revelations are only possible under the supervision of the special services…and the journalist writing such things, I can say with 100% certainty, is an agent of the special services, handed something to write by a trusted person. Or an editor told them ‘here’s the information, write it in your own name,’” FSB Reserve Colonel and Alfa anti-terror special forces veterans association member Andrei Popov told Sputnik, pointing to the problems that arise when listening to “anonymous intelligence sources” speaking to US media.
Popov says that much if not all of the string of revelations now being reported on in the media about the Lebanon blasts is a snow job concocted in consultation with Mossad to allow the Israeli intelligence agency to “cover their tracks and provide a false but plausible lead. That’s how I perceive it from an operational point of view,” he said.
As for the 15 years of planning claim, this is obviously bogus, the FSB vet said, saying he doesn’t fully comprehend the logical behind such "fairy tales."
“Such an operation, from an operative’s point of view, is quite simple. You don’t need to prepare it over 15 years. I think this claim was made to raise Mossad’s prestige, which, of course, fell to an unparalleled low after the October 7 terror attacks,” Popov stressed.
That’s not to say operations stretching out over five, ten, twenty years aren’t possible in intelligence work, Popov elaborated, pointing to an example of a KGB operation feeding the NSA and West German intelligence false information for about a decade after discovering that NATO had intercepted a communications channel between the Soviet Union and East Germany. But it’s a different story for operations involving technology, he added, noting that from a technical point of view, both the pagers’ characteristics and the radio frequencies at which they operate change over such a long period of time.
How Difficult Was Pager Attack to Pull Off?
From a technical standpoint, the pager plot was not rocket science to concoct, Popov said. Among its requirements were a detailed knowledge of Hezbollah’s equipment needs, and what purchases it plans to make, to figure out what items can be swapped for rigged devices, and at what stage.
As for equipment rigging, this is a tried-and-true tool of spy agencies going back many, many years.
“It’s enough to remember the experience of the KGB, or even intelligence services during the Great Patriotic War, when certain caches would be placed in construction materials, in equipment, knowing that they were intended for use by the enemy. These caches would provide us with information – audio, visual, information about radiation, etc. Or, they could be rigged for the destruction of a certain target,” Popov said.
The same is true for the Mossad, the Russian intel officer said, pointing out that the Israeli spy agency has been using technology-based tactics since at least the 1970s, when it began using telephones packed with explosives to carry out assassination attacks.
From the operational perspective, the pager terror would have been “much easier [to prepare] by replacing the goods during transportation, during the logistical stage,” according to Popov. “What is several thousand pagers? It’s several boxes. It’s not a trainload, it’s not a refrigerator – it’s several boxes that can be transported in one minivan. The main thing to know is the marking, the packaging, the pager numbers and the preparation of duplicates,” Popov noted, saying this would be the simplest option for Israeli intelligence.
Another possibility is that the equipment was rigged in the factories making them, Popov said, “but this would be very problematic from the perspective of information leaking out,” particularly if workers in a factory ask questions about the arrival of new, suspiciously untalkative employees.
As for the placement of explosives itself, the simplest option would have been to embed them into the batteries, Popov said.
“That’s what I would have done. It’s the easiest option…This is not a problem whatsoever. It’s not even something at the level of intelligence, but the level of a person who can repair his car with his own hands,” the FSB officer stressed.
“The battery is a hermetically sealed cylinder or thin plate, depending on the pager model. Apparently, Hezbollah did not open and check each battery, or at least a few. I don’t think this was done. If they had, a chemical analysis using the simplest, cheapest gas analyzer available at every metro station in Moscow, would have given cause for some questions. They apparently just didn’t imagine this was possible, counterintelligence did not consider this option,” Popov said.
“If I were in Hezbollah’s place, if I were ordering something, before doing so, I would have my people take a look around at the situation at the production site, or look for a production facility where my operational positions were already in place to highlight how things are going there, and see whether any short-haired new employees are suddenly working there. That’s a sign that something’s wrong,” the FSB vet added.
As for the explosion method, Popov speculates it was either based on a timer designed to go off all at once, or via an impulse triggering the pagers and other electronic devices to detonate.
The fact that an array of electronics, some not equipped with any radio receivers, from solar and car batteries to electric scooters, fingerprint readers and intercoms, were reportedly also destroyed in this week’s terror attacks in Lebanon, leads Popov to believe a timer was involved, indicating that a strategy is place that will undoubtedly include other, follow-up actions.
The FSB vet doesn't rule out that these secondary explosions constituted a "diversion operation" by the perpetrators designed "to cover their trail" and prevent investigators from piecing together the real nature of the plot and its details.
