The White House said Tuesday it had no involvement in an operation that caused thousands of pagers held by Hezbollah members in Lebanon to explode simultaneously.
Militants in the Iran-backed group blamed the attack, which killed eight and injured 2,750 others, on Israel.
“No, the U.S. was not involved,” White House press secretary Jean-Pierre said. “This was not something that we were aware of, and I’m just not going to go beyond that.”
Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been engaged in cross-border attacks in recent months. The Lebanese militants said Israel was fully responsible for the attack, though Israel declined to comment.
Reuters, citing anonymous sources, said Hezbollah fighters had been using pagers to try and avoid Israeli tracking of their locations.
Those pagers were wielded against them, with images of bloodied and screaming Hezbollah fighters flooding hospitals in Lebanon.
Experts called it a remarkable and sophisticated security breach, given the technical savvy needed to sabotage the pagers.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.