An illustration depicting a pager as a grenade (Imagen/Canva)

The pager attack on Lebanon has shown that these lethal, personal attacks are possible, at scale, well beyond the battlefield (Imagen/Canva)

Pager bombs: Precision warfare takes a personal turn in Lebanon

The implications of this attack stretch far beyond Hezbollah to future threats.

Mick Ryan

18 September 20244 min read

In the past 24 hours, nearly 3000 pagers carried by members of the terrorist group Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon. This audacious and imaginative attack on Hezbollah killed at least nine people and injured thousands. While no organisation or country has admitted responsibility for the attack, many, including Hezbollah itself, have pointed the finger at Israel.

If Israel was responsible, it will carry profound implications for Hezbollah and its leadership.

First, Israel is demonstrating that it can identify and target members of Hezbollah regardless of their location or position in the organisation. This is indicative (again) of a sophisticated Israeli intelligence apparatus, which despite its failures leading up to the 7 October Hamas massacres, can execute complex and audacious attacks.

This will give every member of Hezbollah pause to reconsider whether to trust the communications and other equipment issued by the organisation.

Second, Israel is responding asymmetrically to Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel. These rockets, while improving in accuracy, are generally indiscriminate in who they affect in Israel. Hezbollah has shown no distinction between civilians and military targets. Israel however, with these pager attacks, has shown that it can respond not only with aerial bombardment but in a more discriminate and imaginative way.

Third, Israel (if it did conduct the attacks) is saying to Hezbollah’s leadership that it can and will reach out personally, and that it can remove entire layers of the Hezbollah chain of command instantly. Doing so will cause confusion in Hezbollah’s ranks and significantly degrade its ability to plan and coordinate large-scale attacks on Israel.

Finally, the Israelis have demonstrated that they are inside Hezbollah’s communications networks and its supply chains. This will give every member of Hezbollah pause to reconsider whether to trust the communications and other equipment issued by the organisation. But more generally, the Israelis have shown they can intercept and tamper with supplies bound for Hezbollah. What else might they have tampered with?

ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon

An ambulance carrying wounded to a Beirut hospital on 17 September after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon (Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images)

There are implications for Australia in this attack.

First, this is yet another demonstration that individuals are increasingly vulnerable to highly precise and personalised attacks. While the conduct of cyber operations and social media attacks has shown this for some time, the use of explosive mobile devices in the past has been relatively rare. However, the conduct of lethal personalised attacks has escalated in the past two years with the use of armed first-person view drones targeting individual soldiers on the battlefield in Ukraine and Russia.

Now, the pager attack on Lebanon has shown that these lethal, personal attacks are possible, at scale, well beyond the battlefield. These kinds of attacks do not require the resources of a state either – they are possible from motivated individuals or issue-motivated groups if they can access the personal devices of government officials or politicians. It is likely that ASIO and the Australian Federal Police will be conducting an urgent vulnerability assessment for these kinds of attacks against Australian citizens and organisations.

Surviving devices are sure to be examined, and their design exploited and copied by Hezbollah and its allies in Hamas, Iran and beyond.

A second implication for Australia is that the continuing revolution in precision warfare extends beyond the procurement and employment of expensive missile systems. These high-end capabilities certainly have their place, and Australia needs to invest in long-range, precision systems as part of its strategic deterrence framework. But, small, individualised lethal systems are cheaper to produce and procure.

As Indian military theorist Pravin Sawhney portrays in his recent book, The Last War, large quantities of swarming, lethal, tiny drones are highly likely to be a feature of future conflict zones. The Australian Defence Force should be modelling what kind of high end–low end mix of lethal, precision systems might be best for future military operations.

Finally, this is another example of supply chain vulnerability that countries such as Australia are subject to. For nations that import many of their important manufactured goods, including cars, phones, computers, tablets and other personal items, there is an increased vulnerability to these kinds of attacks. Shipments are not difficult to intercept at different stages of their transport from factory to warehouse.

And to make things just a little more difficult, explosives don’t have to be inserted into consumer goods to make them deadly. Software can be corrupted in items from tablets to electric vehicles to cause batteries to overheat or cars to behave in unpredictable ways.

The coming days are sure to reveal more about the pager attacks in Lebanon. It is almost certain that some of these devices failed to function as designed. These surviving devices are sure to be examined, and their design exploited and copied by Hezbollah and its allies in Hamas, Iran and beyond.

But more broadly, the conduct of such an attack should not be a surprise. Nations have been developing ever more precise ways of targeting individuals, equipment and installations since the US Air Force developed laser guided bombs during the Vietnam War. These latest attacks in Lebanon are both a continuation of this trend and a harbinger of a darker and more dangerous age of individualised attacks in an era of precision warfare.

About the author

Mick Ryan

Mick Ryan is a Senior Fellow for Military Studies in the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program.

Topics

Defence & security Israel Lebanon