Wearable electronics like those that Israel used to blow up Hezbollah members’ pagers in Lebanon and Syria pose a threat to the security of Russia and other former Soviet states, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Friday.
Speaking at a meeting of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) special services chiefs, Alexander Bortnikov said that Israel’s operation showed that “the introduction of ‘bookmarks’ can be used not only to destroy critical information infrastructure, but also to organize assassination attempts against representatives of state power using wearable electronics at the right moment.”
In late September, Israel targeted Hezbollah by remotely detonating its members’ pagers and hand-held radios across Lebanon and Syria. The attack killed at least 37 people and wounded around 3,000.
The New York Times reported that Israel’s security services had manufactured and sold the devices to the group.
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