Exclusive: IRGC Killed A Quds Force Colonel On Suspicion Of Espionage - Sources

The largescale cyberattack occurred on Thursday on the eve of commemoration ceremonies for the death anniversary of the late founder of the Islamic Republic Ruhollah Khomeini. The security cameras around his mausoleum were also deactivated. 

The hacktivist group, reportedly affiliated with the Albania-based opposition Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) group, put photos of the leaders of the group Massoud and Maryam Rajavi as well as insults at Khomeini, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and President Ebrahim Raisi on the websites of Tehran Municipality. 

The MEK released a video clip it claimed showed the websites defaced with a graphic that criticized the Iranian leaders, with an image of Khamenei with a red 'X' over his face, while calling for an “uprising until overthrow.”

A spokesman for the MEK told Iran International that over 600,000 text messages saying “Death to Khamenei” and “Damn You Khomeini” were also sent to Iranian citizens today. 

The Municipality of Tehran confirmed the attack, saying the “intentional disruption” of its portals resulted in display of “insulting” images on its websites.

The hack comes after another cyberassault in March on the portal of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (Ershad) and its affiliated websites showing the photos of the Rajavis and calling for the death of the country’s supreme leader.

After a similar attack in January, a MEK spokesman said a ten-second hacking of several television and radio channels of Iranian state broadcasting might have been done by supporters in Iran. The hackers put up pictures of the Rajavis, and one of Khamenei in a gun sight. The Iranian leader was badly wounded in 1981 in one of many bombings attributed to the MEK.

On February 1, Hacktivist group Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) hacked the online streaming of Iran’s state television and broadcasted a video with a strong opposition message. The video started with footage of people in Tehran’s Azadi stadium shouting “death to dictator” referring to Kamenei, then it cut into a close up of a masked man similar to the protagonist of the movie V for Vendetta, who said “Khamenei is scared, the regime’s foundation is rattling”.

In August 2021, a mystery hacktivist group calling itself Tapandegan (Palpitations), previously known for the 2018 hacking of electronic flight arrival and departure boards in Mashhad and Tabriz, released security camera footage from Tehran's Evin prison. Tapandegan said the images came from hackers called Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) and were being circulated to draw attention to prisoner abuse.

In October 2021, gas stations in Iran were hit by an attack disrupting payments, leading to long queues for two days that prevented customers using the government-issued electronic cards for subsidized fuel. ‘Predatory Sparrow’ claimed responsibility, but Iranian officials blamed outside forces, widely taken to refer to Israel.

While Masoud Rajavi is widely thought dead, the MEK insists he is merely in hiding waiting for his return to Iran. The MEK allied to Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and helped the Iraqi dictator put down the 1991 uprisings in Iraq, when tens of thousands died.

The MEK was listed by the US from 1997 to 2012 as a ‘foreign terrorist organization,’ but was subsequently removed from the list. The group has cultivated links with many politicians in the US and Europe, paying large sums for attendance or speeches at its rallies.

The independent monitoring service, which tracks and reports shipments and storage of crude oil, said in a Twitter post on Thursday that they have a visual confirmation the hijacked Greek Suezmax tanker Prudent Warrior is in the anchorage of Bandar Abbas in the southern Hormozgan province and the other Suezmax vessel, the Delta Poseidon is being held north of Larak island near the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards' navy seized the two vessels during helicopter-launched raids on May 27 in the Persian Gulf, a week after the confiscation of Iranian oil from a tanker held off the Greek coast and its transfer to the US. 

Criticized by many former and current officials as well US congresspeople for a lenient Tehran diplomacy that has led to the increase of the Islamic Republic’s oil revenues, President Joe Biden’s administration has apparently stepped up its effort to put pressure on Iran’s crude exports, which have been sanctioned since the former President Donald Trump abandoned the nuclear deal in 2018.

The Vienna talks to restore the 2015 nuclear deal have stalled mainly because of Iran’s demand for the US to remove the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) from its terrorism list (FTO) and the recent missile attacks have shed more doubts whether Washington would take such a step.

“Iranian authorities must understand that they can’t hide the country’s difficult realities and problems by silencing and jailing journalists,” Justin Shilad, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa senior researcher, said Wednesday in New York.

The international press rights group called for the unconditional release of freelance reporter Arash Ghaleh-Golab, arrested at a mourning ceremony for victims of a collapsed building in the south-western city of Abadan, which killed at least 37 and led to protests in south-west Iran and elsewhere.

The CPJ cited a “source familiar with the case” that when Ghaleh-Golab was arrested “officers hit the journalist with their fists and kicked him.” The group said Ghaleh-Golab was being detained without charge at an undisclosed location and not allowed to contact his family.

The Iranian Writers Association has also expressed concern about Ghaleh-Golab and other detainees of the protests in Abadan and other cities in Khuzestan province. Security measures, including restrictions on the Internet, had made the situation of journalists and other detainees “very worrying,” the association said.

Describing the attempted attack as “deeply disturbing,” Idaho’s Republican Senator Jim Risch said in a tweet on Wednesday that “it’s typical of a regime that’s synonymous with global terrorism.”

He also expressed gratitude to the FBI and other security agencies that continue “to keep America safe from Iran’s malign activity.” 

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray disclosed the news about the “despicable” attack by hackers sponsored by Iran Wednesday, warning of rising threats of cyberattacks sponsored by nation states like Iran, Russia and China to companies and US infrastructure.

“If malicious cyber actors are going to purposefully cause destruction, or hold data and systems for ransom, they tend to hit us somewhere that’s really going to hurt,” Wray added. 

Arkansas’ Tom Cotton, another Republican senator, also reacted to the news, urging the Biden administration to hold Tehran accountable and not to reenter an agreement with the Islamic Republic.

“Instead of giving sanctions relief to the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism, Joe Biden should start holding Iran accountable,” Cotton said.

Iran has been repeatedly accused of cyber-attacks against the West, Israel and rival Arab countries in the Middle East.

The group released a detailed report compiling evidence that the six-year detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe on spying charges amounted to a crime under international law and cited other foreign and dual nationals detained in Iran “whose arbitrary detention may amount to hostage-taking.” Amnesty said it last month submitted its evidence to the British parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, which has set up its own enquiry.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released and returned to London in March following the British government paying a £400-million ($500-million) debt to Iran outstanding since the 1970s.

“They used spurious national security charges and sham judicial proceedings against her with the aim of exerting pressure on the UK government to settle its debts,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Amnesty noted that after Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release “a slew of reports by Iranian state media outlets” stated “she had been released ‘in exchange’ for the payment.” These media reports “mirrored “almost identical statements made by the Iranian authorities to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family during her detention.”

But while both Iran and the United Kingdom were parties to International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, requiring them to both prevent and to punish hostage-taking, Eltahawy argued, the “prevailing climate of impunity in Iran has emboldened the authorities to continue using dual and foreign nationals as political bargaining chips without any fear of consequences.”

Request extradition

“The Convention,” the Amnesty report explains, “defines the crime of hostage-taking as the seizure or detention of any person accompanied with threats to cause them harm including by killing, injuring or continuing to detain them in order to compel a third party, such as a state, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the hostage.”

Hence, Amnesty further argued, “where sufficient evidence exists” against Iranian officials, “the UK must request their extradition and prosecute the officials in line with international fair trial standards.”

Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been critical of the British handling of her case, including one representative standing by in Tehran as she was required on release to sign a confession. In 2017, then British foreign secretary Boris Johnson told the House of Commons Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran “simply teaching people journalism” – rather than on holiday.

The Amnesty report also highlighted the cases of Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian doctor on death row, Austrian-Iranians Kamran Ghaderi and Massud Mossaheb, German-Iranians Nahid Taghavi and Jamshid Sharmahd, and two British-Iranians Mehran Raoof and Morad Tahbaz (the last also a United States national). It noted the death in custody in March of 83-year-old Australian-Iranian national Shokrollah Jebeli “after the authorities deliberately denied him adequate specialized medical care and withheld his medication for his multiple serious health conditions.”