Thousands of pagers and other devices exploding in Lebanon this week mark a new and deadly escalation in the use of supply chains against adversaries, giving new urgency to global leaders’ drive to reduce their dependence on technologies from rivals.
Lebanese officials believe the gadgets were rigged with explosives as part of an elaborate attack allegedly by Israel on Hezbollah, penetrating the Iran-backed group’s procurement chain with links from Taiwan to Hungary.
While booby-trapped devices have been used in spycraft for years, the scale and violence of the attacks in Lebanon – which killed at