The Middle East Thread

Away End - General Chat
4647

Sure, but they probably haven’t been able to sell a mined shipment of personal trackers to Hamas and it takes many months, maybe a year, to manage to do this. Because they first have to use shell companies, mine enough trackers, then market them to the organisation they want to target (and convince them to even buy it), and then actually sell them and then wait until they are widely distributed in use.
Probably takes a year. But I don’t know of course. But I think this has been in the works since Hezbollah started firing rockets and ATGMs in response to the Gaza campaign. Maybe even earlier.

Maybe one day we will know.

Anyway, here are 2 examples of the explosions for those who may be interested, if someone are wondering about how big a bang this was:
https://x.com/Faytuks/status/1836038889179390199
Note that the second has sound and screams in it.

4648

Breathtaking really both in its scope and implementation , and a serious fuck-up by Hezbollah. You’d have thought that with a piece of kit as crucial as that to its entire operation that these devices would have undergone some serious checks before being rolled out.

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4649

More than 2800 wounded. Around 300 critical as of now. Hezbollah says 3 “brothers” have died so far from injuries. Unfortunately, also a 10 year girl has died. The filmed hospital scenes are gruesome and filmed up very close, so I don’t know if I should post them here tbh. It does not have that great of news value, I have concluded (a lot of war related scenes DO have news value, as have what looks like war crimes, but what goes on in a panicked hospital does not) unless someone is doubting that the injuries will maim and kill many. But the explosions were considerable, like a small land mine, except that mine was placed in someones pocket or belt. People are missing fingers, some have large holes in their abomen (one missed much of the face too), seems it varies how injured people were. The c4 in the device (guessing) may have exploded either outward or inward, depending on placement of tracker on the body. But know this, the man you saw in the video above was very midly injured compared to some.
Some of the stuff I have been seeing now are injuries that I would assume are “incompatible with life”, to use the military jargoon that Ukraine and Russia always use.

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4650

I happen to think this is important, simply because such an event, has strategic implications. The humiliation of Hezbollah, the erosion of it’s security, the maiming of so many operatives collectively in a mass casualty event; it grants Israel a huge victory and Hezbollah a humiliating defeat.

Therefore, I think this might trigger something.

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4651

Price of austerity or Del-boy’s deal??

4652

Initial statement issued by The Party of God (Hezb-Allah):

“At approximately 3:30 pm on Tuesday 09-17-2024, a number of message receiving devices known as “pagers” exploded, which were owned by a number of workers in various Hezbollah units and institutions. These explosions, the causes of which are still unknown, led to the martyrdom of a girl and two brothers, and the injury of a large number of people with various injuries.

Hezbollah’s competent agencies are currently conducting a wide-ranging security and scientific investigation to determine the causes that led to these simultaneous explosions. Likewise, medical and health agencies are treating the wounded and injured in a number of hospitals in various Lebanese regions.

We ask God Almighty to have mercy on our righteous martyrs on the road to Jerusalem, and we pray for the wounded and injured to recover quickly, and we call on our honorable people to be aware of the rumors and false and misleading information that some parties are spreading in a way that serves the psychological war in the interest of the Zionist enemy, especially since this is accompanied by the Zionist enemy’s speeches of intimidation and threats and what it calls changing the situation in the north.

We affirm that the resistance, at all its levels and various units, is at the highest level of readiness to defend Lebanon and its steadfast people.

Tuesday 9-17-2024”

This is the most recent from that organisation:

Statement issued by Hezb-Allah:

“After examining all the facts, current data and available information about the sinful attack that took place this afternoon, we hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression, which also targeted civilians and led to the deaths of a number of martyrs and the injury of a large number with various wounds.

Our martyrs and wounded are the symbol of our struggle and sacrifices on the road to Jerusalem, a victory for our honorable people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and continuous field support. Our position of victory, support, and endorsement of the valiant Palestinian resistance will remain a source of pride for us in this world and the hereafter.

This treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly receive his just punishment for this sinful aggression, whether he expects it or not, and God is witness to what we say.

Tuesday 9-17-2024”

4653

It should be noted that many Syrians who have been driven in refuge and exile or who now have difficult lives in Syrian areas outside Assad-control, share this opinion:
https://x.com/proud_damascene/status/1836049438088769649

It’s not the most expletive I have read from a Syrian today.

The Middle East is complicated…

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4654

https://x.com/yashar/status/1836048013598642679

4655

I think a lot of people have forgotten just how awful that civil war was. And also if it wasn’t for Hezbollah then Assad wouldn’t probably still be there today.

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4656

Now looking like it was essentially a software hack. The explosive appears to have been the lithium batteries, with some sort of circuit in the unit (probably the vibration) rerouted to cause overheating

4657

That’s not what I am reading from very many sources. Most claim that a lithium battery overheating does not look like that, at all and that it is most certainly devices with explosives charges in them. The injuries I have seen are also significant.
I’m on my way out to travel now, but I can post some sources later. But I have 2 former CIA officers mocking the idea of litium batteries exploding and trying to explain why that is extremely unlikely, and several people knowledgable regarding explosions.

4658

Could be - I have no idea what the mass of a pager battery actually is. But those batteries are nowhere near as carefully managed for heat as a phone battery. Nobody worries about pager batteries, because no one is on their pager 5 hours a day. All it would take is disconnecting the vibrator motor from the weights they spin, and you have a heat source.

4659

Frank Gardner , the BBC’s security correspondent , says it was almost certainly military grade plastic explosive inserted into the pagers. The pagers most likely came from Iran and the speculation is that they were most likely tampered with there by Israeli agents before making their way to Lebanon.

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4660

TBH, when I first heard this story, I thought it was a joke. I was expecting the punchline to be something about them buying a batch from a Mr Wile E Coyote of the Acme Corporation.

It is remarkable, though. This is the sort of thing that you think would be far fetched in a James Bond film.

It’s not overheating batteries, though. The firm I work for had a bad batch in some medical monitoring devices, and they just get hot and stop working. They do have to be disposed of separately, though.

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4661

Considering that Israel got Haniyeh in Iran with help inside , they probably have other personnel active there.

4662

Ingenuous by the Israeli agency.

Just shows that they could have done the same to Hamas but choose not to.

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4663

How do you think they killed all those nuclear scientists ? Iran knows their security services are compromised but are unable to do a damned thing about it.

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4664

No, you can definitely produce significant explosions from lithium-ion batteries, and persistent fires. A medical device probably has orders of magnitude more safety circuitry and shuts off.

However, having seen a couple of segments of video, these would seem to be a little larger than you can produce with a few grams of Li

4665

Unlike their policy announcements, which are somewhat disingenuous.

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4666

The injuries, some of them, resembles shaped charges, very little heat. Experts are saying that if a battery overheat, you will feel it getting warmer prior to the explosion and the explosions, again, resembles hand grenades. I can show you pictures of damage if you want. We are talking about no heat, but very major wounds.
Threads (note who these people are, they are not random people):
https://x.com/ErrataRob/status/1836087317184028999
https://x.com/GeorgeWHerbert/status/1836075883922399540
https://x.com/GeorgeWHerbert/status/1836076401155612931
https://x.com/MacWBishop/status/1836044696121979359
https://x.com/MacWBishop/status/1836122815956668470

I have seen many others too, who claim to have expertise in eplosives, who categoriclly reject the lithium battery theory as “nonsense”.
I myself have absolutely no expertise, but some sources I certainly trust much more than others.

I can show a video of detonation if you want. There is also the hospital video. Large holes in various people, missing hands, fingers. Now more than 500 have serious eye injuries as well (reportedly device was programmed to beep for several seconds before it exploded, so very many had the device close to their head when it went off.