Taiwan's Gold Apollo says it did not make pagers used in Lebanon blastsThe model of pagers used in detonations in Lebanon were made by Budapest-based BAC Consulting, Taiwanese pager firm Gold Apollo said on Wednesday, noting it had only licensed out its brand to the company and was not involved in the production of the devices. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon on Tuesday. According to a senior Lebanese security source and another source, explosives inside the devices were planted by Israel's Mossad spy agency. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. "The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it," Gold Apollo founder and president Hsu Ching-kuang told reporters at the company's offices in the northern Taiwanese city of New Taipei on Wednesday. The company said in a statement that the AR-924 model was produced and sold by BAC. Gold Apollo authorized "BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in specific regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are entirely handled by BAC," the statement said. Reuters' calls and emails to BAC on Wednesday morning were not answered. Hsu said earlier there had been problems with remittances from the firm. "The remittance was very strange," he said, saying that payments had come through the Middle East. He did not elaborate further. Company unaware pagers riggedHezbollah fighters began using pagers in the belief they would be able to evade Israeli tracking of their locations, two sources familiar with the group's operations told Reuters this year. Hsu said he did not know how the pagers could have been rigged to explode. While Hsu was meeting with reporters, police officials arrived at the company. Officials from Taiwan's Economy Ministry also visited Gold Apollo. The ministry said in a statement that there was no record of direct pager exports from Taiwan to Lebanon. Hsu also said Gold Apollo was a victim of the incident and planned to sue the licensee. "We may not be a large company but we are a responsible one," he said. "This is very embarrassing." Hezbollah to continue strikes against IsraelHezbollah, which has pointed the blame at Israel, said in a statement Wednesday morning that it would continue its normal strikes against Israel "as in all the past days" as part of what it describes as a support front for its ally, Hamas, and Palestinians in Gaza. "This path is continuous and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday that it committed against our people, our families and our fighters in Lebanon," it said. Hezbollah began firing rockets over the border into Israel on Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel triggered a massive Israeli counteroffensive and the ongoing war in Gaza. Since then, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have exchanged strikes near-daily, killing hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and displacing tens of thousands on each side of the border. At hospitals in Beirut on Wednesday, the chaos of the night before had largely subsided, but relatives of the wounded continued to wait. Lebanon's Health Minister Firas Abiad told journalists during a tour of hospitals Wednesday morning that many of the wounded suffered "severe injuries to the eyes" and others had limbs amputated. Journalists were not allowed to enter hospital rooms or film patients. Source link Posted: 2024-09-18 12:57:13 |
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