WTH is Going On with Exploding Pagers in Lebanon? Marc Polymeropoulos Explains

With one page, Israel was able to take thousands of Hezbollah
operatives off the battlefield. When Hezbollah feared its modern
communications network had been compromised, the Lebanese
terrorist organization decided to dole out old-school pagers and
two-way radios, hoping they would be more secure. In an operation
more reminiscent of James Bond than reality, Israeli intelligence
managed to infiltrate Hezbollah’s supply line and implant
explosives throughout Hezbollah’s new “secure” communications
network. The result? A crippled adversary, boosted Israeli
morale, and all with historically low civilian casualties.


Marc Polymeropoulos is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward
Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for
Strategy and Security. Polymeropoulos worked for twenty-six years
at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before retiring in July
2019 at the Senior Intelligence Service level. He was one of the
CIA’s most highly decorated operations officers. He is the author
of Clarity in Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the CIA
(HarperCollins, 2021).


Read the transcript here.