A Japanese firm whose name was on devices that exploded says it discontinued them a decade ago.

A Japanese handheld radio manufacturer has distanced itself from walkie-talkies bearing its logo that exploded in Lebanon, saying it discontinued production of the devices a decade ago.

At least 20 people were killed and 450 injured after hundreds of walkie-talkies, some reportedly used by the armed group Hezbollah, exploded across Lebanon on Wednesday.

The devices, according to photos and video of the aftermath of the attack, appear to be IC-V82 transceivers made by Icom, an Osaka-based telecommunications manufacturer.

But Icom says it hasn’t produced or exported IC-V82s, nor the batteries needed to operate them, for 10 years.

It is the second Asian company to be embroiled in bombing incidents in Lebanon this week, after thousands of exploding pagers seemingly linked to Taiwanese firm Gold Apollo killed at least 12 people and injured more than 2,000.

  • buttfarts@lemy.lolEnglish
    71·
    2 months ago

    I wonder if the Mossad deliberately bought old decade+ out-of-production stock to insulate the manufacturer from blowback? Like if they chose a walkie-talkie currently sold by Motorola then it would basically kill that production line and hurt the company by association. People would avoid all Motorola devices in case there were Mossad explosives inside.

    Also maybe they had these devices built and ready to go years ago and had this James Bond shit sitting on the shelf waiting to be put into circulation? This is a one-time attack vector. They won’t be able to do this again so they wanted to make it count.

    • zik@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Most likely it was counterfeit radios. The batteries in decade old Icom radios would probably be dead by now.