The Mossad is a clever bunch, and they demonstrated that very vividly with the rigged-pager attack on Hezbollah. The attack was something new: The Mossad purportedly intercepted a shipment of Taiwan-made pagers headed for Hezbollah, loaded the pagers with PETN, an explosive, and arranged to have them detonate on command.

NOTE: Israel and Mossad have not officially claimed credit for or acknowledged responsibility for this operation.

Now we learn that the command was a spoofed message from Hezbollah leadership.

The exploding pagers that wounded thousands of Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon Tuesday were reportedly detonated by a message impersonating the leaders of the recognized terrorist group. 

Hezbollah militants all across Lebanon and parts of Syria received a message that appeared to be sent by the group’s leadership to their new pagers at 3:30 p.m. But in reality, the fake message was the trigger that set off explosives hidden in the devices, officials told the New York Times. 

The message triggered the batteries inside the pagers to overheat and ignite the explosives, sources told Sky News Arabia.

This is an interesting tactic. The spoofed message, clearly intended to deceive, appeared to the Hezbollah terrorists to be from a source they couldn't ignore, increasing the chances that the pager would be in the goblin's hand or at least on their person, rather than lying on a table or left in a drawer somewhere. It's a nice little touch, and whichever Mossad operations planner thought of that deserves a bonus.

A complex operation like this likely required weeks or months to plan.

Israel allegedly orchestrated the complicated attack to take out Hezbollah’s central method of communication as the group had switched to pagers over phones to avoid Israeli surveillance at its leader’s order in February. 

Mossad allegedly intercepted a shipment of the Taiwanese-made beepers before it reached Lebanon and planted 1 to 2 ounces of pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a highly explosive material, next to the battery, along with a remote trigger switch, the Times and Sky News Arabia reported.

Now, Hezbollah terrorists are looking at their cellular phones and pagers and seeing explosives. That's a good secondary goal of all this. The primary goal, of course, was certainly to un-alive some Hezbollah goblins, and to injure some others, sending them to whatever passes for the healthcare system in Lebanon — which might also serve to identify them by name, assuming Mossad has agents inside the Lebanon health-care system. That is a pretty safe bet.

Previously on RedState: WATCH: Israel Hacked Pagers of Hezbollah Fighters and Made Them Expl.de, Hundreds of Injuries Reported

REPORT: Mossad Intercepted Hezbollah Pager Shipment, Loaded Them With Explosives

It's important to note that while this was an operation intended to kill or injure some Hezbollah operatives, it also yielded fringe benefits. First, it's interesting that Iran's ambassador to Lebanon had one of these pagers. That (as if we didn't already know it) nails down the fact that Hezbollah is a proxy for Iran — there's no other reason for the Iranian ambassador to have one of these devices. Second, it was a very effective psychological operation; as noted above, Hezbollah goblins now no longer trust their technology.

All in all, a successful operation.

Israel is reportedly refusing to comment on the operation. That's to be expected; in such affairs, the old stage magician's disclaimer applies: "If I told you how it's done, then anyone could do it."