Hezbollah chief admits to wildly underestimating Israeli capabilities before pager blasts

Naim Qassem says Lebanese terror group ‘didn’t know the supply chain had been exposed,’ suggests operatives’ growing suspicions about the beepers led Israel to detonate them. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem admitted that the Lebanese terror group drastically underestimated the extent of Israel’s surveillance capabilities in the run-up to the pager operation last September, when thousands of beepers used by Hezbollah operatives exploded across Lebanon, injuring thousands and killing dozens.

In an interview released Tuesday with the pro-Hezbollah al-Mayadeen news outlet, Qassem said an investigation in the wake of the pager operation uncovered serious flaws in Hezbollah’s procurement process, dating back more than a year.

“We didn’t know the supply chain had been exposed,” he said. He said that although Hezbollah’s security checks failed to find the explosives that had been placed within each individual pager, operatives began suspecting something was wrong with them in the days leading up to the attacks. (Read More)