A Japanese communication equipment maker said Thursday that walkie-talkies which simultaneously exploded in Lebanon the previous day may have been a discontinued model it formerly sold, but with modified batteries.
Osaka-based Icom Inc said it is investigating details including its overseas distribution network, after the walkie-talkies detonated in and around the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Wednesday, killing 20 and injuring over 250 people.
"We cannot rule out the possibility that they are fakes, but there is also a chance the products are our IC-V82 model," said Icom Director Yoshiki Enomoto. The company sold some 160,000 units of the model domestically and overseas before terminating sales in 2014.
Images of the devices showing severe explosion damage to their battery area indicate the power packs may have been replaced with ones that were modified to explode, Enomoto said.
While Icom has business units in Europe, it is not clear how the products ended up in the Middle East, the company said.
"It is difficult to determine the distribution channels without checking the serial numbers" of the products, Enomoto said.
Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah often used the devices, according to Reuters, with the explosions following a similar incident on Tuesday when multiple pagers blew up at the same time and killed at least 12 people.
A Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo Co, which has been linked to the pagers, has denied making and exporting the products, saying Hungarian-based firm BAC Consulting KFT produced and sold the devices under license with the Gold Apollo brand.
"Our company only provides the brand trademark authorization and is not involved in the design or manufacturing of these products," Gold Apollo said in a statement Wednesday before its president was summoned for questioning by Taiwanese authorities the following day.
In a statement, Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said the island does not directly export the type of pagers in question to Lebanon. It said Gold Apollo exported around 260,000 sets of pagers between 2022 and August 2024 mainly to European countries and the United States.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged after the two incidents to return residents to their homes in his country's northern border areas after they were evacuated due to cross-border fighting with Hezbollah combatants. He did not confirm whether Israel is behind the exploding walkie-talkie and pagers.
© KYODO
28 Comments
Cephus
Interesting! It's great to see Icon Inc admitting they made the product before discontinuation in 2014.
ian
Pagers now walkie talkies, whatever else anyone may say to ones responsible those are quite impressive works
Data
What's so great about it? What did they "admit"?
finally rich
Full panic mode even when it's not even their fault
https://www.icom.co.jp/news/8108/
mountainpear
Damn cheek sullying the name of a company by tampering with their products to do dirty deeds! Icom should sue the Israeli government!
Zaphod
I must say it is interesting to see a terrorist group complaining about them being terrorized.
Cephus
"What's so great about it? What did they "admit"? Data
Some companies try to distance themselves from a problem as much as they can. But here Icom says the walkie-talkies are our discontinued product that's what is great. It's called ethics.
WoodyLee
5 Innocent children were killed so far by these explosions. nothing " Great " about ending the life of a child regardless, It Is A Murder.
rocketpig
Not great trajectory. It will be copied and soon exploding microwave ovens, refrigerators, shoes, underwear, toothpast, iPhones etc
Some dude
If your company manufactures knives for cooking and someone uses one of your knives to stab someone, it's hardly your fault.
If your company makes cars and someone uses one of your cars to run someone over, that's not your fault either.
John-San
Israel does have a policy of apartheid and ethnic cleaning and harmless playful children are not exempt. I wish they were, but to the Occupier, they are little animals bred from bigger animals. When you are condition for 40 , 50 years that these peoples are animals empathy can not be used in the same sentence with dead children.
mountainpear
@John-San They even discriminated against non-Ashkenazi dark-skinned (Mizrahi) Jews!
GDBD
You missed the main culprit. They exploded these devices without 0 regard for civilians. This is a proof that the Jewish state of Israel is even more of a terrorist.
kohakuebisu
If this were Apple phones, or Microsoft branded laptops, they would sue Israel for reputational damage. Apparently solar panels have been exploding too.
Taking a company's everyday product and turning it into bombs is not remotely acceptable behaviour.
kohakuebisu
Yes, if someone uses a Casio watch in a bomb, it is not Casio's fault. We need to blame to bomb maker.
The bomb maker here is Israel.
jinjapan
An exploding walkie talkie battery killed 20 & injured 250 ??? That sounds quite odd. Had to be explosives unless I'm missing something here.
Raw Beer
Are you referring to the eternal victims, israel?
gokai_wo_maneku
The Japanese firm didn't make the exploding walkie-talkies. The explosives were added after the product arrived in the Middle East.
Bib
Icon can’t control who uses their devices, nor who might tamper with them after they are sold.
factchecker
Floppy disc manufacturers better watch out with all this retro tech getting a revival for all the wrong reasons.
quercetum
But if your company makes guns and someone uses one of your guns to shoot and kill someone, it not only is your fault but the fault of all gun companies.
obladi
gokai_wo_maneku
Thank you! I wonder why this obvious fact is missing from most of the discussions I have seen
ian
They were able to plant so many of those rigged devices.
Most probably they knew the precise locations and can listen to the users' communications.
But why did they have to give up this invaluable advantage?
Something up so big they decided to preempt it?
WoodyLee
Soon we will have copy cats rigging cell phones exploding on airplanes, cars exploding on highways, Solar systems exploding in homes and buildings, computers and laptops exploding in schools, coffee shops, offices, and homes, Gadgets of all kinds exploding in offices, homes and stores.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, it is much worse than the issue of guns and fire arms control,
This is Law Enforcement worst Nightmare, thanks to Israel.
Stewart Gale
Ian, Mossad decided to detonate the devices because they feared that Hesbollah were about to find out about them. I read that today.
ian
Thanks.
Well that's a big enough reason I guess.
Were the devices long in their possession or just acquired?
Stewart Gale
They had been using them for a few months, I believe Ian.
ian
Ah yes..
I was just thinking if the devices were in their possession for sometime then likely bugging devices too