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BEIRUT (Reuters) -The batteries of the walkie-talkies utilized by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that blew up this week have been laced with a extremely explosive compound generally known as PETN, a Lebanese supply accustomed to the machine’s parts advised Reuters.
The best way the explosive materials was built-in into the battery pack made it extraordinarily tough to detect, the supply stated.
Lots of of walkie-talkies utilized by the group exploded on Wednesday, a day after 1000’s of Hezbollah’s pagers detonated throughout the group’s strongholds in Lebanon.
Photos of the walkie-talkies that had exploded confirmed labels studying “ICOM” and “made in Japan”. Icom has stated it halted manufacturing a decade in the past of the radio fashions recognized within the assault, and that the majority of these nonetheless on sale have been counterfeit.
Yoshiki Enomoto, the overall supervisor of Icom’s safety and commerce division, advised Reuters it was doable that an older Icom machine had been modified to make a bomb.
It might be tough to insert an explosive machine into the primary compartment of the walkie-talkie as a result of its electronics are tightly packed, so it was extra prone to have been within the removable battery pack, Enomoto advised the Japanese broadcaster Fuji TV.
The Lebanese supply stated explosions had occurred even in circumstances the place the battery pack was separated from the remainder of the machine.
A Lebanese safety supply had earlier advised Reuters that the pagers had been implanted with explosives that have been tough to detect. One other safety supply advised Reuters that as much as three grams (0.11 ounce) of explosives had been hidden within the new pagers, apparently months earlier than the blasts.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; Extra reporting by Tim Kelly in Tokyo; Enhancing by Elaine Hardcastle and Kevin Liffey)
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