Israel’s Explosive Pagers’ Connection to Reagan and the Deaths of 241 Marines

Glenn Rocess
3 min readSep 21, 2024

One man tied them all together

Rescue workers sift through the rubble of the US Marine base in Beirut in Oct. 23, 1983 (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Chances are you’ve seen or read reports about the twin attacks on Hezbollah using booby-trapped pagers and hand-held radios, resulting in a total of 37 killed and an estimated 3000 victims (including women and children) sent to hospitals across much of Lebanon. The attacks have been likened to a “modern-day Trojan Horse” combined in two separate operations. The pagers were purchased from a manufacturer in Taiwan through an intermediary, and the radios were purchased from another manufacturer in Japan through a completely different intermediary. It appears that at some point during shipment, the pagers and radios were intercepted, retrofitted internally with explosives, and sent along their way.

I’ve long opposed the Netanyahu regime, but one must give them credit for the ingenuity of this scheme and how well it was carried out, though one suspects Israel may come to regret the attack’s success. After all, Hezbollah isn’t just a hardline paramilitary organization, but it is also deeply involved in providing social aid and stability to the Lebanese population.

Be that as it may, there is one victim of this attack whose death I do not regret: Ibrahim Aqil, a senior commander for Hezbollah. Why? Because America has been hunting him for…

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Glenn Rocess
Glenn Rocess

Written by Glenn Rocess

Retired Navy. Inveterate contrarian. If I haven’t done it, I’ve usually done something close.

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