Lavrov Says US Had Prior Knowledge of 'Israel's' Pagers Attack

By Al Mayadeen English

The Russian foreign minister accused Tel Aviv of converting civilian technology into a deadly weapon.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has asserted that the US was likely aware of "Israel's" intentions to carry out a “terrorist attack against Lebanon using communication devices".

He suggested that the attack's complexity and the subsequent leaks to Western media imply possible complicity from Washington.

Last week, a coordinated series of explosions involving thousands of hand-held pagers and wireless receivers occurred simultaneously across Lebanon, resulting in dozens of killings and thousands of injuries.

The Israeli attack, largely attributed to the Mossad spy agency, faced international backlash, with UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk labeling it a “shocking” and “unacceptable” act that violates human rights laws.

Addressing the UN General Assembly on Saturday, Lavrov condemned "Israel’s" “inhumane attack on Lebanon.” He also noted that “anyone who still has a sense of compassion is outraged by the fact that the October tragedy is being used for mass collective punishment.”

“Another glaring example of terrorist methods as a means of achieving political aims is the inhumane attack on Lebanon that transformed civilian technology into a lethal weapon,” the Russian foreign minister stated, calling for an immediate international investigation.

Lavrov stressed that reports from Western media about the details and preparations “indicate to varying degrees the involvement and, at the very least, awareness of Washington concerning the preparation of that terrorist attack.”

He added, “We understand that the Americans always deny everything and do everything they can to hush up any facts that come to light, as they did in response to the irrefutable evidence of their implication in the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline,” referencing the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, which halted Russian gas supplies to Western Europe.

In a related development, Norwegian police issued on Thursday an international search warrant for a Norwegian-Indian man, Rinson Jose, allegedly linked to the terrorist Israeli electronic attacks on Lebanon.

"Yesterday, the Oslo police district received a missing person report in connection with the pager case. A missing persons case has been opened and we have sent out an international warrant for the person," the police said.

Jose, 39, the founder of a Bulgarian company allegedly involved in the pager supply chain, went missing during a work trip to the US on 17 September.

Despite being contacted by Reuters, Jose refused to comment on the pager case and has since been unreachable. His company, Norta Global Ltd, was investigated by Bulgarian authorities, though no evidence was found linking it to the manufacturing or exporting of the pagers.

Dive deeper

On September 21, the Hungarian government announced that intelligence services conducted multiple interviews with the CEO of BAC Consulting, a Budapest-based firm linked to the attacks.

Taiwanese company Gold Apollo had said at the time that the model of pagers used in the detonations in Lebanon was produced by BAC Consulting, claiming that it only licensed its brand to the company and was not involved in manufacturing the devices.

Since the attacks, the CEO, Barsony-Arcidiacono, has not been seen publicly. Neighbors report not having spotted her, and she has not responded to any calls or emails from Reuters. A visit to her residence in downtown Budapest yielded no response, and her apartment, once accessible, is now closed off.

Last week, the Hungarian government confirmed that its intelligence services interviewed Barsony-Arcidiacono several times since the explosions. It classified BAC Consulting as a "trading-intermediary company" without a manufacturing presence in Hungary, claiming that the pagers had never entered the country.

It is worth noting that BAC Consulting's website, which was taken down later in the week, provided little insight into its actual operations in Hungary, and its registered address was listed as a serviced office in a suburban area of Budapest.