Iran International
The leader of Iran’s ultra-hardliner Paydari Party is paving the way for the return of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to politics, one of his former aides claims.
In an interview with the conservative Khabar Online, excerpts of which were published Monday, Abdolreza Davari alleged that the Secretary General of Paydari, Sadegh Mahsouli, in a recent interview, has signaled to the regime that Ahmadinejad is prepared to backtrack from his controversial behavior in recent years if he is given a share in power.
The former president began criticizing the regime after he was not allowed to run again in 2017 and his defiance gradually increased to the point of attacking Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei directly for multiple crises in the country. However, he has been silent for more than a year, keeping a low profile.
“They want to revive and restore the status of Mr. Ahmadinejad within their organization,” Davari who once served as an advisor to Ahmadinejad but has completely distanced himself from him in the past few years, said. He went on the say that Paydari is the only politic al force engaged in reviving Ahmadinejad’s political status.
These comments were made a week after in an interview with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) linked Fars News Agency, Mahsouli praised Ahmadinejad, calling him “charismatic” and a person with “innate management capabilities” and a good command of many things including the economy and diplomacy.
At the same time, Mahsouli who says he has not had any contact with Ahmadinejad in twelve years, showered some praise on Raisi and his administration but claimed that his party does not have anyone in the government. Contrary to this assertion, it is a well-known fact in Iran that Paydari’s ultraconservative members hold many positions in the Raisi administration.
Mahsouli who has led the Paydari Party in the past three years is a former Revolutionary Guard officer and a business tycoon who served as minister of interior and minister of welfare and social security under Ahmadinejad.
Political rivals and critics such as Afshar Soleimani, a former diplomat, allege that he amassed his wealth when Ahmadinejad allowed him to control the oil swap business with the Republic of Azerbaijan in the early 2000s, when he was a governor.
Soleimani also alleged in an interview last week that Mahsouli and Ahmadinejad only pretend to be not on good terms and pointed out that neither has ever spoken seriously ill of the other and will stand together again unless something drastic happens.
The Paydari (Steadfastness) Party has its appendages in all government institutions including the parliament where their members form a very influential minority that often takes a leading role amid the weak presence of established conservative and reformist parties.
Many believe Mahsouli, then interior minister, was the man behind the alleged rigging of the 2009 elections which secured a second term for the incumbent Ahmadinejad.
Both men were strongly supported by Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, ultra-hardliners’ spiritual father, who withdrew his support from Ahmadinejad after his fall from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s grace in May 2011.
In another interview a year ago, Davari claimed that around eighty percent of high-ranking officials in the Raisi administration were picked from among those serving in high positions in Ahmadinejad’s government.
In the same interview he dubbed the Raisi administration as “Ahmadinejad’s third government”. He has also previously alleged that in the past few years the former controversial president has been of the belief that the Islamic Republic is doomed to collapse and when it does, he wants to be Iran's Boris Yeltsin “and commandeer all power in one go”.
Iran has been severely affected from water shortages and prolonged droughts for two decades, while grappling with a substantial electricity deficit in summers and gas shortage in winter.
ISNA reported on Sunday, December 17, that the statistics on the operation of the country's reservoir dams indicate that the water volume in the reservoirs is only 40% full.
Official statistics detail that while the volume of water inflow into the dams increased by 7% compared to the same period last year, the water outflow from the dams increased by 22%. Consequently, their water reserves have decreased by one billion cubic meters.
None of the government statistics or official statements explain why the Ebrahim Raisi Administration allowed a 22% increase in the discharge of dam water. However, details from the Ministry of Energy's data on power generation show that the government has compensated for some of the summer electricity shortage by significantly and urgently increasing hydroelectric power production from dams.
In recent years, Iran has been unable to achieve its electricity generation growth targets, leading to a deepening of the country's electricity shortfall.
In the first seven months of the current fiscal year, started on March 22, Iran launched around a 1,000 megawatts of new power plants, with only 35 megawatts being from solar and wind, and 116 megawatts from "combined cycle" with relatively high efficiency.
This is despite the Raisi Administration’s plan to launch over 6,000 megawatts of new power plants this year, with half of them being renewables.
The latest report from the Ministry of Energy shows that the hydroelectric power generation from the country's dams has experienced a 57% jump in the current Iranian year (beginning March 21) compared to the same period last year, reaching over 17 trillion watt-hours.
This significant increase in hydroelectric power generation comes while the water inflow into the dams this year has only grown by 7% compared to last year. As a result, the government has emptied the reservoirs of the dams to solve part of the summer electricity deficit, exacerbating the country's water crisis.
The monthly report from the Ministry of Energy also indicates that while the government had targeted the launch of 6,000 megawatts of new power plants, only 15% of that has been achieved in the eight months of the current Iranian year, with almost all new power plants being thermal and operating with low efficiency, using natural gas, Mazut, and diesel.
In recent weeks, the highly use of mazut in power plants has led to severe air pollution in the country, especially capital Tehran. This is a dirty fuel banned in most countries.
According to a confidential report, prepared by the oil ministry and obtained by Iran International, Iran used 45 million liters per day of mazut and 117 million liters of diesel in last winter due to gas shortages.
For this year, the government had targeted the launch of over 2,600 megawatts of solar and wind power plants, but only 1% of that has been realized in the eight months of this year.
While Iran boasts 300 sunny days annually, the contribution of solar and wind energy to the country's electricity production remains at approximately half a percent, with atomic energy making up just over one percent.
Deputy Minister of Energy Mahmoud Kamani's announcement on December 15 highlighted an electricity imbalance of 12,000 megawatts this summer, predicting a further 5% increase next year.
For comparison, Turkey surpasses Iran, with 35 times more solar and wind power production and renewable electricity generation capacity 22 times greater than the Iran’s nuclear power plant. Over a quarter of Turkey's electricity is derived from water sources, while this figure for Iran is 6%.
Iran's electricity issue, causing dam water supplies to drop below half, signals a serious problem. The intricate relationship between water resource management and energy production exacerbates the scarcity of both vital resources.
The hacking group "Gonjeshk-e-Darande" or Predatory Sparrow announced the attack on X, claiming that they took out “a majority of the gas pumps throughout Iran.” Tehran cites a “software problem" as the cause behind the nationwide shutdown and says about 90 percent of the stations will be back on track by the end of the day.
Oil Minister Javad Owji earlier told Iranian state TV that services had been disrupted at about 70% of Iran's petrol stations and that outside interference was a possible cause. Reza Navar, spokesperson for Iran’s petrol stations association, said 60 percent were out.
The hacking group, whose nom de guerre is a wordplay in reaction to Iranian state-backed cyber-crime outfit Charming Kitten, said in statements in Persian and English that “the cyberattack comes in response to the aggression of the Islamic Republic and its proxies in the region.” They added, “We will impose cost for your provocations. This is just a taste of what we have in store.”
Addressing Iran’s Supreme Leader, the group said, “Khamenei, playing with fire has a price.”
The attack comes as Iran’s proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen have stepped up attacks against Israeli and US targets on the backdrop of the war in Gaza. Hamas declared war on Israel on October 7 after its militia invaded by air, land and sea, killing 1,200 mostly civilians and taking 240 captives. Iran supports Hamas but says it did not play any role in the Islamist militants' October 7 terror attack.
As measures “to limit potential damage to emergency services,” the hacking group said it “delivered warnings to emergency services across the country before the operation began, and ensured a portion of the gas stations across the country were left unharmed for the same reason, despite our access and capability to completely disrupt their operation.”
The group rose to prominence as a hacktivist two years ago for a similar cyberattack on fuel distribution centers across Iran on the eve of the second anniversary of the bloody suppression of the November 2019 protests. In a separate incident, they claimed responsibility for hacking the state railway company.
Last year, the group garnered attention for successfully penetrating the computer systems of major steel companies in Iran. They went on to share videos and images showcasing their hacking prowess and operation. At the time Israeli military correspondents, who are regularly briefed off-the-record by senior Israeli officials, hinted that Israel was behind that hack, according to the Times of Israel.
Iran has a history of cyber incidents, with one of the most notable being the Stuxnet computer virus, believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel. The Stuxnet virus, discovered in 2010, was used to attack an Iranian uranium enrichment facility, marking the first publicly known instance of a virus being utilized to sabotage industrial machinery.
In the past few days, two refineries in Iran burnt down. Less than a week after a devastating fire engulfed the Birjand oil refinery in east Iran, another refinery in Esfahan (Isfahan) faced a similar fate as it succumbed to flames on Saturday, December 16. In the December 10 incident, all 18 hydrocarbon tanks at the Birjand oil refinery in South Khorasan were consumed by flames.
Hadi Beiginezhad, a member of the Energy Committee in the parliament, criticized the authorities for not learning from the past similar attacks, saying that administrations do not pay attention to the infrastructure of the fuel distribution network.
"We don't know if this incident is technically a hack or if a hack has occurred at all. But what we do know is that the infrastructure of product distribution in the country is facing issues because the enemy has been able to take advantage of our negligence, both in terms of investment and infrastructure,” he said, noting that “the enemy has learned well which channels to strike... They have infiltrators and can easily carry out such sabotage operations."
Iran has witnessed a series of industrial accidents, including fires in oil facilities, petrochemical plants, and industrial centers in recent years. The incidents are often attributed to outdated technology, the use of substandard equipment, and the aging and deterioration of structures. While authorities have not provided comprehensive explanations for these incidents, they have attributed several high-profile sabotage attacks to Israel. However, Israel has not officially claimed responsibility for any of the incidents. Notably, numerous unexplained explosions and fires have occurred at various Iranian military, nuclear, and industrial facilities, including pipelines and refineries, since mid-2020. On January 28, a significant fire erupted at an Iranian military industrial factory, suspected to be the result of a drone strike in Esfahan.
Every now and then, the Islamic Republic announces that it has busted Israel-linked groups planning sabotage operations against its facilities. Israel has neither denied nor confirmed the allegations.
Some Iranians speculate on social media that the hacking of the gas stations can serve as an excuse for the government to increase gasoline prices that are the cheapest in the world after Venezuela. The Iranian government sells one liter of gas for 3 US cents, or 10 cents a gallon, as a long-existing subsidy for domestic consumers. However, the Oil Ministry announced that the disruption at fuel stations is in no way connected to a change in gasoline prices.