Exploding Pagers in Lebanon Spur Theories on Sabotage Method
- Theories of batteries built to overheat or hidden explosives
- Devices are used to avoid interception by Israeli authorities
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From the moment pagers began exploding across Lebanon Tuesday, theories began to circulate on how devices considered outmoded in much of the world were turned into dangerous weapons that killed several people and wounded almost 3,000.
As Lebanon accused Israel of engineering the attack aimed at Hezbollah militants, much of the debate centered on the possibility that the supply chain for the retro devices had been compromised. One prevailing idea was that the pagers had been engineered so that their batteries would heat up until the devices exploded.