Exclusive: Photos Of Some Iranian Cyber Warfare Officials

According to Iraqi authorities, the pilgrims and an Iraqi driver were killed on the road to the Shomali district in Babil Governorate in an accident involving a bus, a van and a truck. 

An official of the Iranian Red Crescent, Taher Doroudi, said the accident happened near a gas station and the van hit the truck after a gas canister in it exploded. A video posted on social media shows smoke rising from the burning vehicles in the desert. And people wailing and running away from the scene of the explosion.

Thirty others were injured in the accident and explosion, authorities said. "It's not possible to identify the victims of the pilgrims' bus because of severe burns," Doroudi said.

The hot weather also left tens of thousands of pilgrims dehydrated and in need of medical care. Iran’s Red Crescent Society said Friday that at least nine people had died and about 10,000 people were referred to healthcare stations with signs of heatstroke.

Millions of Iraqi Shias as well as pilgrims from countries including Iran, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia have already arrived or are on the way to the holy Shiite city of Karbala, located about 100 kilometers (62 miles) southwest of Baghdad Arbaeen ceremonies which will be held on September 17 this year.

It was estimated that between one and 1.5 million people crossed Iranian land and air borders into Iraq seven days before Arbaeen last year. “The figure stands at more than two million people this year,” Iran's State-run English-language Press TV channel said Sunday.

So far this year, the Tehran-supported pilgrimage to Karbala has been associated with confusion and chaos, lack of planning and proper facilities.

On Friday, Iraq and Iran closed land borders citing “worrying and serious dangerous incidents at two border crossings” as the reason but the influx of pilgrims from Iran was resumed later.

A commander of Iran-backed Shiite militia Hashd al-Shaabi, also known as Popular Mobilization Forces, claimed Saturday that the group thwarted a "terrorist plan to target the pilgrims in the city of Karbala." He did not provide any details about the attack or attackers.

In a statement published on his personal Twitter account Sunday, the leader of Iraq’s Sadrist movement, Muqtada Al-Sadr, urged Iraqis to show the highest degree of cooperation with security forces, especially in Karbala, and stressed that neither the pro-Iran Hashd al-Shaabi (People's Mobilization Forces (PMF)) nor Saraya al Salam (Peace Companies), a paramilitary group loyal to Sadr himself, should be entrusted with any security work on the ground or at checkpoints during Arbaeen ceremonies this year.

Sadr also forbade Iraqis from attacking or insulting foreign pilgrims, “Iranian brothers in particular”, “by hand, tongue, leaflets, or in any other way”.

Clashes between Pro-Sadr paramilitary and pro-Iranian Hash al-Shaabi in late August left at least 30 dead.

Social media reports say Iraqis are not as welcoming to Iranian pilgrims as in previous years, but Press TV said Saturday that Iraqis were “extending hearty and sincere welcome” to hundreds of thousands of Iranian pilgrims and that Iraqi people and state official were working to resolve the difficulties arising from lack of adequate transportation facilities to move and unprecedented high number of Iranian pilgrims from Iran’s western borders to Karbala.

“Iraqis have driven towards the border crossings with their own cars to solve the problem,” Press TV wrote.

Emphasizing that the Islamic Republic “is the main problem in the Middle East,” Ronen Bar said that “Iran is the cause of much of the problems we are facing now in the West Bank, and the recent fighting in the Gaza Strip.”

“We can only dream of the level of terror” Tehran can promote if sanctions against the country are removed as part of a revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement with the US and the West.

He said the eras of conventional warfare, the nuclear arms race and physical terror have passed and in the current era terrorists can use social media platforms and algorithms to influence trends to manipulate the understanding of the general populations of Western countries of the current world events.

He added that “information technology must transform into information management” to fight back against these social media trends, stressing the need to develop a diverse mix of technological experts in different cyber and other arenas, who can deal with distinct social media threats impacting the Palestinians and other Shiites throughout the region. 

Earlier in the day, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid thanked France, the United Kingdom and Germany for their “firm position,” a day after the European powers raised “serious doubts” about Tehran's intentions to reach a nuclear deal.

On Thursday, the US Special Representative for Iran Rob Malley met with Jewish groups after an unexpected lag in Iran nuclear negotiations following several weeks of progress.

Lapid has argued that his tactful approach to France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Biden administration has been more productive than the assertive stance of his rival Benjamin Netanyahu, as the two men lead their respective political blocs towards Israel’s November 1 parliamentary election.

“Yesterday the E3 countries announced that a nuclear agreement with Iran will not be signed in the near future, that the IAEA’s open files regarding Iran are not about to be closed,” Lapid said Sunday. “Israel is conducting a successful diplomatic campaign to stop the nuclear agreement and prevent the lifting of sanctions on Iran.”

However, what pushed the Europeans to say that there are “no active negotiations” was Iran’s latest response to a European Union draft agreement submitted to Tehran and Washington on August 8. Iran’s response was called “non-constructive” by the Biden administration and seen by the E3 as a sign of lack of willingness to make a deal by Tehran.

If Iran’s response was different after 17 months of talks, the Biden administration had already agreed to the EU draft and the optimism prevailing in August would have been justified.

Iran insists that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) drop an enquiry into uranium traces found in sites linked to Tehran’s nuclear work before 2003. It also demands various sorts of guarantees from the US.

Time for ‘new agreement’

A “senior Israeli official” told journalists Sunday that the time had come to look for a “new agreement,” leading some Israeli media to proclaim the JCPOA dead. Unless the IAEA, Iran and the US together with the E3 change their minds, “there won't be any choice” but to abandon the 2015 deal, the Israeli official reportedly said.

Lapid said the aim of his trip to Germany was to coordinate “positions on the nuclear issue” and that he would be “finalizing the details of the strategic, economic, and security cooperation document we are going to sign.”

Lapid also stressed Israel was “working to prevent Iran from establishing terrorist bases throughout the Middle East and especially in Syria.” Israel regards Lebanon’s Hezbollah, a close Iranian ally, as well as most Palestinian groups as ‘terrorist.’ Lapid said there was a “growing terror threat in the West Bank,” according to the Jerusalem Post.

Consulting partners

The E3, apparently short of declaring the JCPOA talks dead as Lapid suggested, said it would “consult, alongside international partners” on how best to proceed, both over the continued expansion in Iran’s nuclear program and its failure to satisfy the IAEA over the uranium traces.

In Iran, some argue Europe’s attitude towards the talks may change as winter brings energy shortages due to sanctions on Russian energy exports and European leaders eye Iran’s 90 million barrels of oil in storage, which would be released with US sanctions eased should the JCPOA be restored.

Ali Akbar Salehi, who was head of the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran (AEOI) when the JCPOA was signed in 2015, defended the agreement this week against critics by arguing it had not fundamentally stymied Iran’s technological progress. Hence, Salehi argued, the AEOI had been quickly able to expand the program once parliament, in the wake of the November 2020 had passed legislation requiring a higher level of uranium enrichment and employing more advanced centrifuges.

Albania’s interior ministry said Saturday that the latest hack, which occurred on Friday forced Albanian officials to temporarily take offline its Total Information Management System (TIMS), a system for tracking the data of those entering and leaving the country.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said on twitter the cyberattack was carried out by the “same aggressors” behind the July hack, that disrupted Albanian government services. 

On Sunday, Washington condemned the recent attack against its NATO ally, saying, “The US government is supporting Albania’s efforts to mitigate and recover.”

The United States Treasury Department Friday sanctioned Iran’s intelligence ministry for “cyber operations” against the US and allies, a day after White House and NATO allies condemned the attack. 

The attack happened around the time of a conference of the exiled Iranian Albania-based opposition group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK). In early August, cybersecurity firm Mandiant expressed “moderate confidence” the attackers were acting in support of Tehran’s efforts to disrupt the MEK conference, which had to be cancelled as well due to a terror threat.

Iran’s foreign ministry Thursday rejected accusations about the alleged cyberattack. Relations between Tehran and Tirana have been tense since 2014, when Albania accepted some 3,000 members of the MEK.

Tehran alleged Saturday that the US has trained and equipped MEK for “cyberattacks and psychological warfare” against Iran.

According to videos posted on social media police tried to disperse the protesters, who were insisting on keeping the continuing their vigil. 

The protesters were carrying placards with the slogans "Don't execute" and "No to execution."

There is no confirmed report of the number of detainees yet, but social media photos and videos show that there were children among the arrested people. 

The families of prisoners sentenced to death have been holding demonstrations in front of the Revolutionary Court in the city of Karaj and the judiciary in Tehran for the past week, demanding a halt to the execution of their family members and relatives. 

Regular protest rallies with various demands have been held in Iran in recent years, but the gathering of families of prisoners sentenced to death is a rare event.

Late in July, two human rights organizations said Iran has embarked on an execution spree at a “horrifying pace” with at least 251 hangings between January 1 and June 30, 2022. 

Amnesty International and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran said in a report that the actual number is likely higher, as authorities keep secret figures on death sentences passed and executed.

On June 16, UN Secretary General António Guterres released a report on the situation of human rights in Iran, decrying “the high number of death penalty sentences and executions.” The UN chief said that the number of executions in Iran increased from at least 260 cases in 2020 to 310 individuals in 2021, and the number continued to rise into 2022.