Category: moslems & jihadis

This Is the Most Deliciously Devious Part About Israel’s Exploding Pager Attacks

As a spy thriller fan, I love reading about the clever gadgets the good guys use to vanquish the bad guys, which is why I’ve been fascinated by the story of Hezbollah’s deadly exploding pagers. How did Israel pull this off? Was it really Israel who did this? This attack is even more exacting than the exploding bed at the Iranian “safe” house.

Now we’re learning more details of the attacks, and they’re as impressive as they are diabolical.

Three thousand beepers exploded this week, killing a bunch of Hezbollah terrorists and some innocents. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon lost an eye in the attack.

After that attack, Hezbollah began using walkie-talkies, and they exploded.

When the terrorists decided to meet in person in Lebanon Friday, someone bombed the meeting.

Israel has not confirmed it carried out the attacks, nor is it likely they will ever lay claim to them, but U.S. intelligence officials who talked to their favorite intelligence mouthpiece, the New York Times, claimed Israel pulled it off. Time will tell what the truth is.

This operation has obviously been planned for quite some time. Though Israeli intelligence agencies were completely caught off guard by Hezbollah’s Iran-backed October 7 attack, they appear to be trying to make up for that huge intelligence debacle.

Defense One reports that Hezbollah had a deal with a Taiwan company, Gold Apollo, to supply the Islamic supremacist terror organization with pagers. Someone probably needs to have a little chat with the Taiwan company that sells AR-924 pagers to terrorists, but they told whoever asked that they weren’t responsible for the pagers.

They pointed the finger of blame at a Hungarian firm called BAC Consulting KFT. This appears to be a shell company run by friendly or Israeli intelligence. Indeed, multiple Israeli cutouts may have been involved in the manufacturing and sales of the devices.

The Times reports that Israel “did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.”

That’s right. The shell company sold the rigged pagers manufactured by the good guys.

And this is the best part of the story—if you hate Islamo-Nazi terrorists, anyway—Hezbollah paid for its own rigged and exploding pagers.

Defense One characterized the “supply chain hack” operation as “legendary.” The hackers installed “tiny quantities of explosives into at least 3,000 pagers specially ordered by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants across Lebanon and Syria.” Legendary, indeed.

The pagers reportedly were laced with the chemical PETN.

The National Institutes of Health says that “Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), CASRN 78-11-5, belongs to the class of compounds known as organic nitrates. It is used mainly as a demolition explosive and in the manufacture of detonating fuses and blasting caps…and is the main ingredient in Semtex, a plastic explosive.” Ah, Semtex. That’s a big boom-boom right there.

And the terrorist outfit handed out the pagers after they inspected them and still couldn’t detect the Semtex.

I guarantee you this episode will be in every spy thriller novel for 20 years forever.

The Times reports Iran’s terror proxies have been on their heels for a few years. The paper report that “in 2020, for example, Israel assassinated Iran’s top nuclear scientist using an A.I.-assisted robot controlled remotely via satellite.”

Like Afghanistan terror groups did after they realized U.S. drones could track their phones, Hezbollah has gone low-tech, hence the pagers, walkie-talkies, and in-person meetings.

More soberly, however, the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies killed more than a dozen bad guys, and 2,700 people were wounded, including some kids.

This was the reported breakdown of the casualties.

I guess some of the guys who lived won’t have the balls to reproduce and taint humanity’s gene pool anymore.

When you start feeling sorry for these guys, just remember what their Hezbollah buddies did to families, babies, and women on October 7, and then you’ll snap right out of it.

And Israel literally made them pay for their own deaths.

Israel Confirms Beirut Airstrike

The Israeli air force killed senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil in an airstrike on Beirut. Aqil was in a bunker several feet below a residential building where he was meeting with the top brass of Hezbollah’s operations array and the leadership of the Radwan Force. Aqil was the head of Hezbollah’s military operations and commander of the elite Radwan force. Israel says that he was the commander of the operation to invade the Galilee in an October 7-style strike.

Alongside Aqil, the top brass of Hezbollah’s operations array and the leadership of the Radwan Force were killed in the strike, according to the military. In a statement, the IDF says Aqil was the head of Hezbollah’s military operations, the acting commander of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, and the head of a plan to invade the Galilee.

“Aqil and the commanders who were eliminated were among the architects of the ‘plan for the occupation of the Galilee,’ in which Hezbollah planned to raid Israeli territory, occupy the communities of the Galilee, murder and kill innocents, similar to what the Hamas terror organization carried out in the murderous massacre on October 7,” the IDF says in the statement.

Aqil was also wanted by the United States for his role in the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut as well as directing the taking of U.S. hostages in Lebanon during the 1980s. The targeted killing of Aqil is one more sign that war between Israel and Hezbollah is liable to break out at any time.

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Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Hand-held radios used by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south and in Beirut suburbs, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions launched via the group’s pagers.

Lebanon’s health ministry said nine people had been killed and more than 300 injured, while the death toll from Tuesday’s explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured.

At least one of Wednesday’s blasts took place near a funeral organised by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day when thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country and wounded many of its fighters.

A Reuters reporter in the southern suburbs of Beirut said he saw Hezbollah members frantically taking out the batteries of any walkie-talkies on them that had not exploded, tossing the parts in metal barrels around them.

Lebanon’s Red Cross said on X that it was responding with 30 ambulance teams to multiple explosions in different areas, including the south of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

Hezbollah, which was thrown briefly into disarray by the pager attacks, said on Wednesday it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets, the first strike at its arch-foe since the blasts wounded thousands of its members in Lebanon and raised the prospect of a wider Middle East war.

Images of the exploded walkie-talkies examined by Reuters showed an inside panel labelled “ICOM” and “made in Japan.”

According to its website, ICOM is a Japan-based radio communications and telephone company.

The company has said that production of several models of the ICOM hand-held radio have been discontinued, including the IC-V82, which appeared to closely match those in images from Lebanon on Wednesday and which was phased out in 2014.

There was no immediate reply from ICOM to a Reuters request for comment on Wednesday.

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beep beep beep….BOOM!
From my experience, these explosions are lithium battery going off due to some signal causing an overload. The explosions without the fire – usually seen when a lithium battery goes – reminds me of about a 1/2 ounce of C4.

BREAKING UPDATE: 8 Killed, 2,750 Wounded, Mostly Hezbollah Terrorists, as Pagers They Use to Communicate Explode Across the Country

LATEST UPDATE: Lebanon’s Health Minister reports that eight people have been killed and 2,750 injured due to exploding pagers across the country, per ABC News.

Over 1,000 individuals, mostly Hezbollah terrorists, were wounded when the pagers they use for communication exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

Authorities are expecting that the number of victims will continue to rise.

The incident, confirmed by security sources, is being called the “biggest security breach” the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror network has faced since its ongoing war with Israel began.
The explosions, reported by Reuters, occurred at 3:45 p.m. local time. Panic spread as Hezbollah-controlled areas in southern Beirut and other parts of the country were hit with explosions that lasted for over an hour.

Security sources confirmed that the devices were the latest models used by Hezbollah and were thought to be critical in their communications amidst their war efforts against Israel.

Despite Hezbollah’s close ties with Iran, which has been instrumental in supplying the group with weapons and communications technology, this incident marks a significant embarrassment for their operations.

Hezbollah’s use of technology, likely provided through Iranian channels, appears to have backfired in the most dramatic way possible. Even the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was reportedly injured in one of the blasts, according to Iranian media.

All signs indicate a remarkable operation orchestrated by Israel’s Mossad.

More from Reuters:

The pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months, three security sources said.

The wave of explosions lasted around an hour after the initial detonations, which took place about 3:45 p.m. local time (1345 GMT). It was not immediately clear how the devices were detonated.[…]

Lebanon’s crisis operations center, which is run by the health ministry, asked all medical workers to head to their respective hospitals to help cope with the massive numbers of wounded coming in for urgent care. It said health care workers should not use pagers.

The Lebanese Red Cross said more than 50 ambulances and 300 emergency medical staff were dispatched to help in the evacuation of victims.

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Tim Walz: Anti-Israel protesters ‘speaking out for all the right reasons’.

The Democratic vice presidential candidate failed to mention Hamas or the six murdered hostages in his response to a local radio station

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, told a Michigan NPR affiliate on Thursday that anti-Israel protesters in Michigan “are speaking out for all the right reasons.”

“I think those folks who are speaking out loudly in Michigan are speaking out for all the right reasons. It’s a humanitarian crisis. It can’t stand the way it is, and we need to find a way that people can live together in this,” Walz said in an interview with WCMU, a public radio station serving central and northern Michigan.

Walz has said little about the war in Gaza since Harris tapped him to be her running mate in August. His remarks in the WCMU interview, after a reporter asked how a Harris-Walz administration would handle the Israel-Hamas war, offered a look at his thinking on the topic. 

“I think first and foremost, what we saw on October 7 was a horrific act of violence against the people of Israel. They have certainly, and the vice president said it, l’ve said it, have the right to defend themselves, and the United States will always stand by that,” Walz began. 

In his answer, Walz did not mention Hamas. Nor did he refer to the six hostages, including U.S. citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who were murdered over the weekend. 

“We can’t allow what’s happened in Gaza to happen,” Walz continued. “The Palestinian people have every right to life and liberty themselves. We need to continue, I think, to put the leverage on to make sure we move towards a two-state solution.”

Then, Walz clarified where, in his view, the U.S. should exert leverage: on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I think we’re at a critical point right now. We need the Netanyahu government to start moving in that direction,” said Walz. “We’ve said it and continue to say it, getting a cease-fire with the return of the hostages, and then moving towards a sustainable, two-state solution is the only way forward.”

Over the past year, Walz has attempted to appease both pro-Israel Democrats and more progressive Democrats who have become staunchly critical of Israel after Oct. 7. He drew scrutiny last month for having previously appeared at events with a Muslim cleric who has shared antisemitic and pro-Hamas content.

Hostage Taken on October 7 Freed by Israel in ‘Complex’ Military Operation.

Some Israelis are saying that the rescue of Kaid Farhan al-Qadi, a hostage held in Gaza since his abduction during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, is reminiscent of the “Miracle of Entebbe” where 102 hostages were rescued by 100 Israeli commandos on July 3-4, 1976.

The IDF described the rescue operation as “complex.” As is customary, no details were released to the public about the operation.

What is known is that Mr. al-Qadi is back in the bosom of his family.

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The Houthis have defeated the US Navy

Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG) was set up in December 2023 in response to the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping passing through the southern Red Sea. The aim was to provide a unified international front that would both deter the Houthis from further attacks and reassure the shipping companies who due to reasons of risk and associated insurance costs were already starting to take the long route round the Cape of Good Hope.

The problem was, it didn’t work. The Houthis were not deterred and continued taking pot shots at anyone and everything from ships with the most tenuous links to Israel, to Iranian grain carriers to Russian dark fleet oilers. For relatively little effort and money, they achieved their desired end states of ‘improved local influence’ and ‘challenging international shipping’ almost immediately. Their line that they would stop if there was a ceasefire in Gaza convinced only a few.

This led to Operation Poseidon Archer starting in January 2024, with US and UK counterstrikes on Houthi targets. But as Saudi Arabia proved between 2015 and 2023 (and repeatedly told us) trying to disable the Houthis by kinetic strikes is like punching smoke, and so it proved.

None of these efforts were helped when the EU formed a splinter coalition called Aspides so as not to associate with the US posture in Israel. The West’s inability to agree on how to perform a relatively basic task did not go unnoticed by potential adversaries. It was certainly noticed by the shipping companies we were trying to reassure.

Since January, not only have the attacks steadily increased in number, they have diversified too. Drones and cruise missiles were accompanied by hijackings and ballistic missiles. April saw the first use of a surface drone and there has been a steady increase in this method since.

Recently the Houthis have started following up their attacks with small arms fire from fast boats and the last few weeks have seen the amount of attacks increase above what was an average of 2.5 a week.

Even Russia doesn’t want to risk it at the moment. Earlier this month, Russian tankers Arpus and Arlan, which could have gone through the Suez Canal, instead transferred their oil into the Gold Pearl – too big for the Canal – and she duly went round the Cape.

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Pro-Hamas Activists Storm Democratic Event in NYC, Clashing With Police and Setting Off Smoke Bombs

While it wasn’t an official Kamala Harris campaign event in New York City, it was in support of her candidacy as local Democrats, including Mayor Eric Adams, arrived to give what’s reported as a pep rally for the vice president’s candidacy ahead of next week’s convention in Chicago, Illinois. There was one significant issue: the rally got interrupted by pro-Hamas activists, highlighting the simmering tension within the Democratic Party base about the war in Gaza (via Politico):

The energy and size of an ebullient rally of elected New York Democrats hyped for Kamala Harris’ candidacy met a massive crowd of pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting, banging drums and waving banners Wednesday night.

The Democrats’ rally was interrupted repeatedly by the protesters — a reminder of one of the party’s biggest internal divisions.

But like the vice president has on the campaign trail, the speakers took the brief disruptions in stride. …

The gathering, dubbed the “New York City Kickoff” and attended by federal, state and municipal leaders as well as labor union members, delivered Democratic unity at an event space in Harlem. Both Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) urged the Democrats in solidly blue New York City to canvass in swing states like Pennsylvania for the Harris-Walz ticket and in swing districts around the state for House Democratic candidates.

The event wasn’t officially sanctioned by the Harris campaign, but it gave the feel of a pep rally or sendoff to the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago.

Muhammad Inspires Jihadis, But What If Muhammad Never Existed?

An imam in the Vancouver area, Adnan Abyat, recently preached a rousing sermon designed to get his congregation all fired up for jihad. As Muslim leaders all over the world speak of Hamas’ conflict with Israel as a jihad, it’s understandable that this kind of sermon would be common in the Islamic world these days. Abyat, like many others, attributed the jihad impulse to Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Yet there is abundant reason to believe that Muhammad was not exactly what Adnan Abyat and so many others think he was.

Abyat declared: “I attest that Muhammad is Allah’s servant and His prophet who awakened the desire for Jihad and incited the believers, who made Jihad for the sake of Allah the pinnacle of Islam, and the one who said that Paradise is underneath the shades of the swords.”

To be sure, this was a statement of faith, but it was one that was rooted in history. Abyat believes that Muhammad was a real man who walked this earth and made statements that can be known today among his multitudes of followers. As the man whom Allah chose to deliver his eternal message to mankind and whom he designated as the “excellent example” for the believers (Qur’an 33:21), Muhammad’s words carry special weight for Muslims.

Indeed, Muhammad’s words are why jihadis take up the sword, as Abyat went on to explain: “His shari’a [law] elevated the status of the mujahideen [warriors of jihad] and he said that Jihad for the sake of Allah raises a man a hundred levels in Paradise and the distance between levels is like the distance between heaven and earth.”

Yet what if Muhammad really said none of this? What if the stories Islamic tradition tells us about what he said and did are more myth and legend than sober historical fact? Then Hamas and other jihadis all over the world are killing and dying for a fiction. It would be the cruelest of cruel jokes on the jihadis, but if this idea became widely known in the Islamic world, the result could be transformational.

A few years ago, I explored this question in a book titled Did Muhammad Exist? In it, I demonstrated that the earliest available biographical data about Muhammad dates from two centuries after the traditional date of his death. There are a few mentions of “Muhammad” here and there before then, but none of them match what we know, or think we know, about the prophet of Islam.

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