Japanese telecommunications company Icom said Thursday that it “cannot confirm” whether its walkie-talkie models were used in the explosions that affected members of the Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon the previous day.
“This morning, there were reports in the media around the world that two-way radio devices with the Icom logo exploded in Lebanon,” the company said in a statement.
The Osaka-based company said the devices could be counterfeit models or devices that were discontinued a decade ago and had been fitted with modified batteries.
Japanese company Icom investigates
Icom said it was investigating reports that hand-held transceiver devices bearing its logo had exploded in Lebanon the day before, in a second wave of simultaneous explosions involving wireless communications equipment following those involving pagers the day before.
A source close to Hezbollah said walkie-talkies used by its members exploded in its Beirut stronghold, and state media reported similar explosions in southern and eastern Lebanon.
The Icom devices involved in the explosions are IC-V82 walkie-talkies, of which some 160,000 units were produced and sold both in Japan and abroad, including in the Middle East, between 2005 and 2014, the company said in a second statement released Thursday.
Devices that were discontinued a decade ago
The devices were discontinued a decade ago and Icom’s overseas branches and subsidiaries have not released new versions of them since. Icom also stopped producing and selling the batteries used in the handheld radios.
The Japanese telecommunications company only sells its products abroad through official stores and applies strict export controls under Japanese regulations, Icom added.
All of its radio transmission equipment is produced in Japan and complies with international safety standards for the sector, according to the firm, which added that it does not use parts from other manufacturers in its products.
Possible non-approved batteries, modified to explode
Company director Yoshiki Enomoto also said that some of the circulating images of the alleged Icom devices that exploded in Lebanon show what could be non-certified batteries that had been modified to explode.
The company official also said that it was “not possible to determine” the distribution channels of its products, or whether the employees in Lebanon were actually from the company, without checking their serial numbers.
The Japanese government, for its part, said it is aware of the reports and is gathering details on the matter, spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference.
32 dead and about 3,200 injured
The new wave of simultaneous explosions on communications equipment that Hezbollah suffered in just two days left 20 people dead and more than 450 injured, raising the total death toll in both series of explosions to 32 people, and the number of injured to some 3,200.
The Lebanese Civil Defense said in a statement that its teams were involved in extinguishing fires that broke out in dozens of buildings and vehicles due to the explosions of “wireless devices and fingerprint readers.”
The simultaneous explosions of hundreds of paging devices used by Hezbollah had already killed 12 people, including two children, and wounded 2,800 others across Lebanon the day before.
Fear of “an escalation of any kind”
The unprecedented attacks have been attributed to Israel, which has not issued any comments. The incidents have once again raised fears of an open war breaking out in Lebanon, against which Israel had already stepped up its rhetoric in previous days, insisting on the need to end Hezbollah’s presence on the border.
The White House warned all parties against “escalation of any kind.”
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