Sitrep: Exploding pager attacks on Hezbollah marks new era of personalised warfare
The attacks on Hezbollah, which saw the detonation of explosives placed inside the group's pagers and walkie-talkies, marks a "new era of personalised warfare", according to a defence expert.
Professor Peter Roberts, a former director of military sciences at RUSI, said a "Pandora's box has been opened" for attacks similar to the one believed to have been carried out by Israel.
Prof Roberts was joined by former Army intelligence officer Philip Ingram on this week's Sitrep podcast - which analyses the top defence stories of the week and is available wherever you get your podcasts.
The attacks left dozens dead, including children, with thousands more injured, according to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Prof Roberts said the attacks would make armed forces around the world check their logistics chains and validate any new equipment used.
He also said this new kind of warfare would "worry quite a lot of people".
"It's an evolution that we've seen in how to inflict casualties on the adversary," he pointed out.
"Previously, this has been sort of assassination, but this is assassination on a mass scale.
"We've talked about this for a couple of years in terms of personalising warfare, and this is very much the way that it's been executed.
"It is a new era of personalised warfare."
Mr Ingram said the attacks was "extremely audacious" and would have been in the planning for months.
"Supply chain attacks per se, when it's looking at small numbers of devices and things… they're not common, but they're not unusual," he said.
"However, something on this scale where it's weaponised products that have been sent into a military organisation is unique.
"I can't think of another instance I know of at this scale."
He added that the attacks would have left Hezbollah without a number of its leaders.
"It's completely disrupted their communications networks because their mobile phones can be tracked," he said.
"We all know that. So they won't want to use mobile phones.
"They now won't trust any new technology that they've got.
"In fact, they probably won't trust any technology. So they're going to have to get back to face to face.
"But they haven't got the senior leaders around to have these face-to-face meetings because most of them are in hospital and some of them are dead."
This attacks will also be useful for Israel from an intelligence perspective, Mr Ingram explained.
"You can't get something better as a trigger to give you opportunities to find things," he said.
"I remember General Rupert Smith, before the first Gulf War turned round and said 'If you're look at a millpond that's completely still from an intelligence perspective, don't be afraid to throw a pebble in and watch the ripples'.
"Well, this was a pretty good pebble that's been thrown in - and the ripples will be going for quite some time."
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