Japanese walkie-talkie maker investigating Lebanon explosion reports

The source of Wednesday’s explosions was not immediately clear. Lebanon’s state news agency said some of the explosions occurred in a brand of two-way radio, with images from the scenes of the explosions showing walkie-talkies bearing the brand name Icom and the model number V82.

“It was reported that a radio with a sticker bearing our company logo exploded in Lebanon early this morning,” Icom, a Japanese manufacturer of radio equipment, said in a statement on its website Thursday morning. “We are currently investigating the facts of this incident. We will update you on our website as new information becomes available.”

Osaka-based Icom, founded in 1954, is a manufacturer of wireless communication products. The company produces communication receivers including amateur, marine and aviation radios, and navigation products. They are sold in more than 80 countries around the world with subsidiaries in the United States, Australia, Germany, Spain and China, according to Icom’s website.

The general manager of Icom’s security and trade division told the Kyodo News agency that the device could be its IC-V82 model, although the company couldn’t yet rule out “the possibility of a fake.”

Japanese media reported Thursday that the IC-V82 model was discontinued in 2014.

“The battery may have been replaced with a battery that was modified to explode after the product was acquired,” Kyodo quoted the official as saying.

The IC-V82 manual, posted on Icom’s website, says: “Use/charge the specified Icom batteries only. Only tested and approved for use with genuine Icom batteries. Fire and/or explosion may occur when a third party battery pack or counterfeit product is used/charged.”

Earlier, a sales executive at Icom’s U.S. subsidiary told the Associated Press that the exploded devices appear to be a knockoff product and not made by Icom.

“I can guarantee you they were not our products,” the AP quoted Ray Novak, a senior sales manager for Icom America’s amateur radio division, as saying during an interview Wednesday at a trade show in Providence, R.I.

Novak said Icom introduced the V82 two-way radio model more than two decades ago and it has long since been discontinued. It was favored by amateur radio operators and for use in social or emergency communications, including by people tracking tornadoes or hurricanes, he said.

Hezbollah had moved to older technologies for communication, deeming cellphones too easy to compromise. But this week’s attacks, which have been attributed to Israel’s military, has challenged the thinking.

Israel, which rarely comments on its intelligence operations abroad, has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the attacks.

The explosions on Tuesday, which killed at least 12 people and injured as many as 2,800, were caused when the pagers were simultaneously detonated. Experts said that they were likely intercepted before delivery and rigged with explosives.

The pagers bore the logo of Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo, which has denied making the devices and said they were “entirely handled” by a Hungarian company called BAC Consulting KFT, which was authorized to use Gold Apollo’s brand trademark in some regions.

Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo said the Taipei government was closely watching developments. “The relevant national security bodies are paying great attention to this,” he said in remarks released Thursday.

The Washington Post could not reach BAC for comment and the government of Hungary denied links to the devices. Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said on social media that BAC is a “trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary. It has one manager registered at its declared address, and the referenced devices have never been in Hungary.”

Pei-lin Wu in Taipei contributed to this report.