Authorities in Taiwan and Bulgaria yesterday denied involvement in the supply chain of thousands of pagers that detonated on Tuesday in Lebanon in a deadly blow to Hezbollah.
Tuesday’s attack, and another on Wednesday involving exploding hand-held radios used by Hezbollah, together killed 37 people and wounded about 3,000 in Lebanon.
How or when the pagers were weaponized and remotely detonated remains a public mystery and the hunt for answers has involved Taiwan, Bulgaria, Norway and Romania.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Security sources said that Israel was responsible for the pager explosions that raised the stakes in a growing conflict between the two sides. Israel has not directly commented on the attacks.
New Taipei City-based Gold Apollo (金阿波羅通信) this week said it did not manufacture the devices used in the attack and Budapest-based BAC Consulting KFT, to which the pagers were traced, has a license to use its brand.
“The components are [mainly] low-end IC and batteries,” Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
When asked whether the parts in the pagers that exploded were made in Taiwan, Kuo said: “I can say with certainty they were not made in Taiwan,” adding that the case is being investigated by judicial authorities.
In response to media queries, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) answered “no” when asked if he had met with the de facto Israeli ambassador to express concern about the case.
“We are asking our missions abroad to raise their security awareness and will exchange relevant information with other countries,” Lin said.
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) also said that Gold Apollo “and Taiwan did not directly export pagers to Lebanon.”
Bulgaria also became a focal point for investigations on Thursday after local media reported that Sofia-based Norta Global Ltd was involved in selling the pagers.
Bulgaria’s state security agency DANS yesterday said that it had “indisputably established” that no pagers used in the Lebanon attack were imported to, exported from, or made in Bulgaria.
Neither Norta nor its Norwegian owner had traded, sold or bought the pagers within Bulgaria’s jurisdiction, DANS said.
As Taiwanese authorities look into any potential link between its sprawling global tech supply chains and the devices used in the attacks in Lebanon, Gold Apollo president and founder Hsu Ching-kuang (許清光) was questioned by prosecutors late into the night on Thursday then released.
Another person also at the prosecutors’ office was a woman surnamed Wu (吳), a representative connected to BAC, who had set up a company based in Taipei called Apollo Systems.
She did not speak to reporters as she left late on Thursday.
A spokesperson for the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office said that it had questioned two people as witnesses and was given consent to conduct searches of their firms’ four locations in Taiwan as part of its investigation.
“We’ll seek to determine if there was any possible involvement of these Taiwanese companies as soon as possible, to ensure the safety of the country and its people,” the spokesperson said.
Iran-aligned Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel, which has not claimed responsibility for the detonations.
The two sides have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the conflict in Gaza erupted in October last year.
Additional reporting by AFP
TYPHOON: The storm’s path indicates a high possibility of Krathon making landfall in Pingtung County, depending on when the storm turns north, the CWA said Typhoon Krathon is strengthening and is more likely to make landfall in Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said in a forecast released yesterday afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the CWA’s updated sea warning for Krathon showed that the storm was about 430km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point. It was moving in west-northwest at 9kph, with maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts of up to 155kph, CWA data showed. Krathon is expected to move further west before turning north tomorrow, CWA forecaster Wu Wan-hua (伍婉華) said. The CWA’s latest forecast and other countries’ projections of the storm’s path indicate a higher
SLOW-MOVING STORM: The typhoon has started moving north, but at a very slow pace, adding uncertainty to the extent of its impact on the nation Work and classes have been canceled across the nation today because of Typhoon Krathon, with residents in the south advised to brace for winds that could reach force 17 on the Beaufort scale as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecast that the storm would make landfall there. Force 17 wind with speeds of 56.1 to 61.2 meters per second, the highest number on the Beaufort scale, rarely occur and could cause serious damage. Krathon could be the second typhoon to land in southwestern Taiwan, following typhoon Elsie in 1996, CWA records showed. As of 8pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 180km
TYPHOON DAY: Taitung, Pingtung, Tainan, Chiayi, Hualien and Kaohsiung canceled work and classes today. The storm is to start moving north this afternoon The outer rim of Typhoon Krathon made landfall in Taitung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) at about noon yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, adding that the eye of the storm was expected to hit land tomorrow. The CWA at 2:30pm yesterday issued a land alert for Krathon after issuing a sea alert on Sunday. It also expanded the scope of the sea alert to include waters north of Taiwan Strait, in addition to its south, from the Bashi Channel to the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). As of 6pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 160km south of
SECURITY: The New Zealand and Australian navies also sailed military vessels through the Strait yesterday to assert the right of freedom of navigation The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force on Wednesday made its first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait in response to the intrusion by a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft into Japan’s sovereign airspace last month, Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday. The Japanese news platform reported that the destroyer JS Sazanamisailed down through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, citing sources in the Japanese government with knowledge of the matter. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi declined to comment on the reports at a regular briefing because they concern military operations. Military vessels from New Zealand and Australia also sailed through the Strait on the same day, Wellington’s defense ministry
RSS