Russia calls pager attack 'act of hybrid war' against Lebanon

Russia's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said an attack on Lebanese group Hezbollah and others using exploding pagers was an act of hybrid war against Lebanon in which thousands of innocent people had been hurt.

A senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters that Israel's Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before Tuesday's detonations.

The attack saw thousands of pagers detonate across Lebanon, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others, including the group's fighters and Iran's envoy to Beirut.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in a statement: "We regard what happened as yet another act of hybrid warfare against Lebanon, which has harmed thousands of innocent people.

"It appears that the organisers of this high-tech attack deliberately sought to foment a large-scale armed confrontation in order to provoke a major war in the Middle East."