The batteries of the walkie-talkies used by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that blew up this week were laced with a highly explosive compound known as PETN, a Lebanese source familiar with the device’s components told Reuters.
The way the explosive material was integrated into the battery pack made it extremely difficult to detect, the source said.
Hundreds of walkie-talkies used by the group exploded on Wednesday, a day after thousands of Hezbollah’s pagers detonated across the group’s strongholds in Lebanon.
The Lebanese source said explosions had occurred even in cases where the battery pack was separated from the rest of the device.
Ok, new acronym … I Am Not A Bomb Expert (IANABE) but this is just a somewhat explosive-noob educated guess …
PETN can be mixed with a plasticizer and RDX to make a plastic explosive (or possibly a plastic casing that would surround a battery pack???)
As it has been reported that some of the battery packs exploded even when they had been removed from the device, there must have been an igniter in the battery pack as well (engaged by a radio signal vs a software signal???)
PETN has a high shattering effect (which may be why it was chosen to shatter a battery pack???)
Everything in parentheses with ??? means a guess … because, again, IANABE.
edit to add - how many explosve-trained dogs do you think walk around Lebanon, just checking out the scenery?
it’s just, so many devices. surely one of them would have crossed paths
this is completely me guessing but like, they have to have regular airport security, otherwise other nations wouldn’t be letting airplanes from their country enter their airspace, right? that would mean bomb dogs at the very least. unless they don’t have any international airports?