- Israeli `undercover’ operatives appear to have penetrated the supply-chain logistics of the Shia militant group acting as middlemen.
- It is, however, questionable if Israel is anywhere near to securing peace even in the shorter run.
by *Prasad Nallapati
The world is in awe as Israel unfolds its mastery over military strategy and cyber warfare in the past weeks with no parallel, leaving literally no place to hide for its adversaries.
On Tuesday at 3.25 pm, thousands of `pagers’ held by Hezbollah activists in Lebanon and Syria exploded simultaneously killing twelve and injuring some 2,800, including Iranian ambassador to Beirut.
Even before the Hezbollah could recover from the shock, came another shocker very next day, this time in the form of walkie-talkies blowing up. Another 20 Hezbollah men killed and some 450 injured.
Having disrupted the group’s tactical communications, the Israeli air force carried out a clean surgical bombing putting thousands of Hezbollah rocket launchers out of service. Senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed, along with 12 others, in a targeted strike.
Earlier last week, in an operation comparable to only Entebbe, Israeli special forces conducted a raid into a Syrian compound inside a mountain near the city of Masyaf, which was reportedly being used by Iran to build missiles and rockets for Hezbollah. The commandos fast-roped from hovering helicopters into Syrian territory and did a short work of their targets before flying back.
The 1976 Entebbe operation is still etched in the memory of intelligence operatives as an unparalleled and daring action. Israeli commandos rescued more than 200 Israeli hostages after their aircraft was hijacked by Palestinian militants and flown to Uganda.
How Did Israel Pull it Off
The pagers and the walkie-talkies are part of a new batch of communication systems that the Hezbollah acquired earlier this year following a leadership determination that cellular phones, then in use for communications, were compromised by Israelis and to be discarded.
But, here comes the biggest enigma of the process of acquiring the new machines. The old AR-924 model pagers of Taiwan’s Gold Apollo company and the IC-V82 model walkie-talkies of the Japanese company, ICOM, are not in production any more by their parental companies.
License for production and distribution of the pagers was given to a Budapest-based Hungarian company which has no manufacturing facility and its activities are mired in mystery. The said pagers had never come to the country.
Similarly, production of the two-way radio systems and their batteries was discontinued by the Japanese company some ten years ago in 2014.
Where then the Hezbollah placed the order for the equipment. Since they cannot openly buy any equipment, they go through “reliable” middlemen.
Here comes the most plausible explanation. Israeli `undercover’ operatives appear to have penetrated the supply-chain logistics of the Shia militant group acting as middlemen.
The communication equipment might have been actually produced and shipped from Israeli `covert’ facilities around Europe. They were then filled with explosive material and a malware into the operating system to trigger explosion before they were sent forward to the Hezbollah.
Undercover Operatives and Supply-Chain Penetration
Undercover operatives acting as middlemen and compromising supply-chain mechanisms are nothing new and have been very successfully used by both the Israeli intelligence and their American counterparts.
A well documented case of a supply-chain penetration had earlier come from documents leaked by Edward Snowden, former National Security Agency contractor, in 2014. They reveal a secret warehouse where the NSA workers intercepted electronic devices shipped from US company, Cisco systems, without the latter’s knowledge. Surveillance devices were embedded into the devices before being sent to unsuspecting overseas customers.
Israelis used a Dutch engineer for implanting a highly sophisticated Stuxnet computer worm in Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in 2007 that caused uncontrolled spinning of centrifuges and consequent damage.
Hamas bomb maker, Yahya Ayyash, was killed in 1996 while answering a call from a cellphone rigged with explosives. His friend’s relative was reportedly used to supply the altered phone.
Khaled Meshaal, a top Hamas leader, survived an assassination attempt in 1997 when Mossad operatives, under cover of tourists using Canadian passports, injected poison to him at the entrance of his office in Jordanian capital, Amman.
What Next
Prime Minister Netanyahu has himself announced his military objectives that aim at decimating warring capabilities of the Hamas and the Hezbollah forever to eliminate prospects of repetition of October terrorist attacks in which over1,000 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage.
He said a “new era” of war is beginning on its northern border with Lebanon as Israel launched its heaviest aerial bombardments there.
Israel has no doubt scored a massive tactical victory over both the Islamist groups in Gaza and Lebanon.
It is, however, questionable if Israel is anywhere near to securing peace even in the shorter run. The Islamist groups are no match to the highly sophisticated military might of Israel but their unsophisticated `hit and run’ tactics will continue to trouble the Jewish state.
Lessons To Be Learnt
Israeli scheme of compromising communication systems of `high value’ targets have long been known but the scale of the latest operations is unparalleled. The Hezbollah is laid bare and will take much longer to recover.
This is perhaps the way that future wars would be fought. You win half the battle by freezing an enemy into a shock without even firing a shot.
Many other countries are trying replicate these strategies perfected by Israel and the US. This, however, works only in asymmetrical warfare where one side has unquestionable dominance over the other.
Russia had penetrated Ukrainian telecommunication networks and tried to shut them off as it prepared its military invasion of the latter in February 2022, but it was foiled by Kyiv, with the assistance of US and European intelligence operatives.
The Communist China is very good at studying military techniques of such successful campaigns around the world and absorbing them into its strategic planning. As it has become the world’s factory of advanced electronic devices, Beijing has been trying to fit such devices with surveillance systems.
Chinese companies like the Huawei, which are believed to be working closely with their security organizations, have been employed by Beijing to spread its surveillance technology in Africa and other countries.
According to a 2020 Heritage report, China has built at least 186 government buildings in Africa and at least 14 sensitive intra-governmental tele-communication networks. Beijing has also donated computers to at least 35 African governments. Similar Chinese generosity can also be seen in India’s neighbourhood.
China’s sinister designs came to light in 2018 when investigators found that computer networks and security cameras installed by the Huawei company at the African Union HQs were being used to keep surveillance on the activities of the African leaders.
Today, it is difficult to find any electronic or telecommunication device without Chinese components in them and these could be potential `back doors’ that it can be exploited when required.
Countries like India are easy prey as they import much of their electronic and telecom networks and need to be watchful of their supply-chain management.
(*Prasad Nallapati is President of the Hyderabad-based think-tank, `Deccan Council for Strategic Studies’, and former Additional Secretary to the Govt of India)
