A pager attack used a well-known espionage tactic to once again cause devastating human casualties

This week's attack on the militant political group Hezbollah using exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, was a novel use of a tried-and-true spy tactic and a devastating intelligence blow against Hezbollah, according to experts who spoke to NBC News.

According to the Lebanese Health Minister, at least 37 people were killed in the attack, including two children. The explosions also injured thousands of Hezbollah targets and civilians.

It took journalists days to uncover the details of the incident.

News of the complex and deadly operation that has slowly emerged suggests that Israeli intelligence agencies have been using the supply chain to plant the explosives in order to get modified devices into the hands of their targets.

While supply chain disruptions are not uncommon in the world of spies and espionage, the attack on the militant political group Hezbollah opens a new chapter in the history of covert operations, as in the past such supply chain disruptions or attacks have been part of years-long surveillance operations rather than designed to create a violent event with many casualties.

“We have examples where supply chains have been compromised in a very elaborate, long-lasting, sophisticated way for espionage purposes. We don't have as many examples of actual attacks. This may be the first supply chain attack that really deserves the name supply chain attack,” said Thomas Rid, a Johns Hopkins University professor who studies the history of intelligence operations.

How Israel was able to get manipulated versions of the two communication devices into Hezbollah's hands is still largely unclear. The Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications said on Wednesday that the exploded walkie-talkies were Icom V82s, even though they were not approved. On Thursday, Icom said that production of the V82 model had stopped in 2014 and that the devices manufactured since then were counterfeit.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Israel did not intercept any pagers intended for Hezbollah, but set up the entire supply chain as a network of front companies to manufacture and distribute counterfeit models, including shipping the explosives to Hezbollah, according to three intelligence officials familiar with the matter. NBC News has not confirmed the report.

Emily Harding, a veteran of the CIA and the U.S. National Security Council, said supply chain compromises are important intelligence tools but are often kept secret from the public.

“Supply chain compromises are tried and tested in intelligence work,” said Harding, director of the Intelligence, National Security and Technology Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I literally can't think of a single example that isn't classified.”

However, she said the scale, planning and violence behind the pager and walkie-talkie operation made the incident unique in the history of supply chain compromises.

The history of elaborate supply chain compromises to gather intelligence stretches back at least to the Cold War. After World War II, a now-defunct Swiss company called Crypto AG rose to become a global leader in various types of intelligence equipment, including encrypted communications devices and software. Starting in 1970, the company was acquired by and largely operated by the CIA, according to a 2020 joint investigation by the Washington Post and ZDF, which obtained a classified description of the operation from the CIA.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment to NBC News. The report concludes: “It was the intelligence coup of the century,” the Post reported.

Later, the National Security Agency reportedly developed a method of intercepting computer networks and implanting spy devices into them before they reached their target.

A 2010 agency newsletter article, later stolen and leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden, described the process.

A former NSA employee from that era who was directly familiar with the practice and asked to remain anonymous to discuss the secret operation confirmed the existence of the operation to NBC News.

The NSA did not provide comment to NBC News by deadline.

More recently, the FBI and Australian Federal Police are said to be the developers of Aom, a proprietary smartphone and messaging app marketed to criminals for its supposed security. In reality, according to court documents and the book Dark Wire, police were able to decrypt any message sent through Anom's messaging service, leading to over a thousand arrests around the world.

Neither the FBI nor the Australian agency responded to requests for comment.

Countries and militant organizations have long accused opponents of sabotaging weapons and ammunition to harm the soldiers who use them.

There are also precedents for intelligence agencies sabotaging specific items to carry out targeted assassinations, ranging from the CIA's multiple plans in the 1960s to kill former Cuban President Fidel Castro with contaminated cigars to the alleged killing of Hamas explosives expert Yahya Ayyash by Israeli intelligence in 1996 by rigging his cellphone with explosives and detonating it when his father called.

While the attack in Lebanon broke with intelligence tradition by using a supply chain for an attack rather than for espionage purposes, it could serve Israel's military goals and have far-reaching political implications.

“This is a major and embarrassing morale destroyer” for Hezbollah, Harding said.

“It's also a physical disruptor and a boon for the intelligence community because now if you have video of these things exploding, you know exactly who they were connected to and you can find out who that person is and who their contacts are. It's a real intelligence bonanza.”