OnSeptember 17, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, in the day’s briefing, said that Americais gathering information regarding the pager explosion in Lebanon andunderlined that the U.S. had no involvement in it. The haste to distancethemselves gives off the impression of "protesting too much," givenAmerica's past similar actions. In 2010, for instance, a computer virus knownas Stuxnet, jointly developed by the United States and Israel, remotelydestroyed centrifuges at Iranian nuclear facilities, delaying the launch ofIran’sBushehr nuclear power plant.

Followingthe pager explosion in Lebanon, Edward Snowden, a former employee of theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA), made a post on X, noting how the eventreminded him of disclosures he made in 2013 when he exposed mass surveillanceactivities. He recounted how American intelligence agencies would interceptnetwork equipment en route to target countries at airports, install implants,repackage them, and send them on their way to infiltrate target networks.Snowden commented, "A decade has passed, and transportation security hasnot improved," implicitly suggesting a connection between the Lebanesepager explosion and the intelligence agencies of the U.S. and Israel, with theCIA being the prime suspect behind the scenes.