Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon in second day of explosions

from Reuters

Hand-held radios used by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon's south, in Beirut suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions by the group's pagers.

Lebanon's health ministry said 14 people had been killed and 450 injured on Wednesday, while the death toll from Tuesday's explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured...

... Images of the exploded walkie-talkies examined by Reuters showed an inside panel labelled "ICOM" and "made in Japan."

According to its website, ICOM is a Japan-based radio communications and telephone company...

...  The hand-held radios were purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time as the pagers, a security source said...

... Taiwanese pager maker Gold Apollo denied that it had produced the pagers. It said the devices were made under licence by a company called BAC, based in Hungary's capital Budapest.

Hungary on Wednesday said the devices had never been in the country and that authorities had established that BAC was a trading-intermediary company with no manufacturing or operations in Hungary...

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