U.S. Suspects Iran Was Behind a Wave of Cyberattacks

WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials are increasingly convinced that Iran was the origin of a serious wave of network attacks that crippled computers across the Saudi oil industry and breached financial institutions in the United States, episodes that contributed to a warning last week from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta that the United States was at risk of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor.”

Among American officials, suspicion has focused on the “cybercorps” that Iran’s military created in 2011 — partly in response to American and Israeli cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz — though there is no hard evidence that the attacks were sanctioned by the Iranian government.

Until the attack on Aramco, most of the cybersabotage coming out of Iran appeared to be what the industry calls “denial of service” attacks, relatively crude efforts to send a nearly endless stream of computer-generated requests aimed at overwhelming networks. But as one consultant to the United States government on the attacks put it several days ago: “What the Iranians want to do now is make it clear they can disrupt our economy, just as we are disrupting theirs. And they are quite serious about it.”

SOME OF ISLAMIC IRAN’S BLOODY INVOLVEMENT IN GLOBAL WARS SUCH AS IN:

Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Yemen, Afghanistan (Taliban), “Palestinians,” Lebanon, Venezuela-Colombia drug war (Farc).

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Benghazi follow-through
By Boston Herald Editorial Staff
Monday, October 8, 2012

Lassitude has not been limited to al-Qaida. Hezbollah and its backer, Iran, clearly were behind the deadly assault on a U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983; a planned retaliation on a Hezbollah base was dropped. The bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 by a Hezbollah affiliate was, the FBI concluded, engineered by Iran; no counter-blow was launched. was quiet outside the U.S. Consulate as evening fell on Benghazi.
http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view/20221008benghazi_follow-through

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Officials: Iran behind advanced, lethal IED - Army News | News from .../
Feb 11, 2007 – ... the highest levels of the Iranian leadership of arming Shiite militants in Iraq with sophisticated ... Officials: Iran behind advanced, lethal IED ...
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/02/apiraniniraq070211

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Iran Deploys Troops, Ballistic Missiles To Eritrea
The Cutting Edge
Joseph Grieboski December 8th 2008
Cutting Edge Foreign Editor

Iranian ships and submarines have deployed an undisclosed number of Iranian troops and weapons at the Eritrean port town of Assab, according to opposition groups, foreign diplomats, and NGOs in the area.

The city of Assab sits at the Horn of Africa in the Arabian Sea. As such, Assab offers a strategic position as the world nervously eyes the precarious routes through which a seaborne oil traverses daily.

Local sources have reported that Iran recently sent soldiers and a large number of long-range and ballistic missiles. The military basing came after Iran signed an accord with Eritrea to revamp the Russian-built refinery used by the Eritrean Oil Company, also known as Assab Oil Company.
http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=980&pageid=37&pagename=Page+One

Ethiopia: Iran Steps In As Eritrea Attacks
Jun 19, 2008 – June 19, 2008: For several years Eritrea and Iran have made friendly diplomatic gestures and discussed economic cooperation In mid-May the ...
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/ethiopi/articles/20080619.aspx

Yemen summons Eritrean ambassador for alleged arms supply to ...
Nov 10, 2009 – Yemen summons Eritrean ambassador for alleged arms supply to rebels ... using Eritrean soil as a base by Iran, but providing no further details.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/10/content_12427386.htm

Yemen Sees ‘Mounting Evidence’ Iran send arms from Eritrea ...
Nov 26, 2009 – Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) — Yemen sees increasing evidence that Iran is arming Shiite Muslim rebels who seized territory on the 1,500-kilometer ...
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16305

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West accuses Iran of shipping arms to Syria
WZVN-TV-Sep 20, 2012
... who said his city’s Somali immigrants should “accept our culture and leave your .... A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the U.N. did not immediately ... other Western powers expressed serious concern at Iran’s arms exports to ...
http://www.abc-7.com/story/19600614/west-accuses-iran-of-shipping-arms-to-syria

FSA threatens to take fight to Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut
The Daily Star-Oct 9, 2012
“They [the Hezbollah detainees] have confessed to killing and slaughtering [people] in Syria,” Masri said, indicating that most of the captives ...
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Oct-10/190818-fsa-threatens-to-take-fight-to-hezbollah-stronghold-in-beirut.ashx

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Somalia-Iran Foreign Relations | IranTracker
May 9, 2010 – In 2006, the Somali government accused Iran of attempted to supply the Somali insurgent Union of Islamic Courts militia with weapons, ...
http://www.irantracker.org/foreign-relations/somalia-iran-foreign-relations

Iran ‘tried to get uranium by arming Somalia’ - Telegraph
www.telegraph.co.uk › News › World News
Nov 16, 2006 – Iran tried to obtain uranium from Somalia in return for supplying weapons to the anarchic country’s Islamist movement, the United Nations said ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1534351/Iran-tried-to-get-uranium-by-arming-Somalia.html

Iran and Syria supplied Somali Islamists with arms, says UN - World ...
Nov 16, 2006 – A UN-commissioned report has accused 10 countries, including Iran and Syria, of breaking an arms embargo on Somalia amid fears that the ...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/iran-and-syria-supplied-somali-islamists-with-arms-says-un-424488.html

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Hizballah in Africa | Wege | Perspectives on Terrorism
by C Wege - 2012
Africa’s state system, exploited by Hizballah and Iran for a generation,[1] ... Iranian arms smuggling infiltrations from that circle reach into Nigeria, Kenya, and the central African spaces.
http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/wege-hizballah-in-africa/html

‘Hezbollah’s powerbase in w. Africa growing’ - Israel News, Ynetnews
www.ynetnews.com › Ynetnews › News › World News
Feb 22, 2012 – Azerbaijan arrests ‘Iran-linked’ attack plotters · ‘Iran, Hezbollah planning ... Prosor said that Hezbollah’s grip on western Africa was part of a growing ... in which criminals and terrorists join forces on drugs and arms trafficking.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4193128,00.html

The Iran/Hezbollah Strategic and Terrorist Threat to Africa
Mar 28, 2012 – The Iran/Hezbollah Strategic and Terrorist Threat to Africa. Ely Karmon .... of Africa. Major regional blunder: Iranian Arms Shipment to Nigeria ...
http://www.ict.org.il/Articles/tabid/66/Articlsid/1060/currentpage/1/Default.aspx

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FARC Cash Seized in Costa Rica Linked to Iran & Venezuela | The ...
Mar 25, 2008 – FARC Cash Seized in Costa Rica Linked to Iran & Venezuela ... Information on Russian illegal arms dealer Viktor Bout who was later captured ...
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2008/03/farc-cash-seized-in-costa-rica-linked-to-iran-venezuela/

Terror At Hugo Chavez’s Hand - Forbes.com
Jan 21, 2009 – The U.S. is also investigating weapons deliveries to the FARC by Iran, Syria and Russia that violate U.N. sanctions against both Iran and the ...
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/21/venezuela-iran-terror-oped-cx_mr_des_0121rowanschoen.html

Iran arming Taliban, U.S. claims - CNN
Jun 13, 2007 – The United States has “irrefutable evidence” that Tehran is transferring arms to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, a top U.S. diplomat told CNN ...
http://articles.cnn.com/2007-06-13/world/iran.taliban_1_iranian-revolutionary-guard-state-nicholas-burns-iranian-government?_s=PM:WORLD

BBC News - Hague fury as ‘Iranian arms’ bound for Taliban seized
Mar 9, 2011 – The foreign secretary condemns Tehran’s actions after British Special Forces seize a suspected shipment of Iranian arms intended for the ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12694266

Iran’s illegal arms trade: ‘Hypocritical and dangerous’
By Allan Urry
6 June 2011 Last updated at 19:24 ET
Evidence is mounting that Iran is supplying weapons to the Taliban - and that British and other foreign troops are dying in Afghanistan as a result.

“On the one hand it claims to want to come back into the international community, and the next thing they’re doing something that it knows is contrary to what the international community has decided.”

The BBC has seen a letter from the UK Mission to the United Nations, addressed to the chairman of the Security Council committee on Iran, which states without hesitation that Tehran supplied the rockets to the Taliban.

“These rockets originated in Iran and were being transferred to the Taliban at the behest of the Iranian regime,” writes Philip Parham, Charge d’Affaires to the UK Mission.

And this is only one of a number of recent incidents which provide damning evidence of Tehran’s involvement in arms smuggling to Afghanistan and elsewhere.

One such case involved former Royal Marine Andrew Faulkner, who was jailed for two-and-a-half years last year after he admitted trying to smuggle high specification rifle sights to Iran.

Not long ago the weapon of choice for Taliban fighting UK troops in Afghanistan was the improvised explosive device (IED), but in the last 15 months there has been an increase in the number of soldiers shot dead by Taliban marksmen.

Snipers
The first British victim of the change of tactics by the Taliban in Helmand Province was 23-year-old Corporal Richard Green, from the 3 Rifles, who was shot dead on patrol in Sangin in March 2010.

“So the main threat was IEDs and they had pretty well sorted out the IED threat,” he said.

“Snipers weren’t even considered, he never spoke to me about snipers, ever. It was always about IEDs.”

The sniper scopes Mr Faulkner tried to smuggle were stopped before they reached Tehran, but his arrest led HM Revenue and Customs to a Europe-wide illegal arms racket.

UK Customs tipped off their Italian counterparts, who began an investigation into claims that people inside - or connected to - Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were placing orders for explosive fuses and chemical parts, despite an arms embargo against the country.

Iranian Arms Deals

[Spanish police prevent sale of nine military transport helicopters (March 2011)
Israeli commandos intercept a ship which officials say is carrying arms from Iran to militant groups in the Gaza Strip (March 2011)
Italian officials arrest two Iranians and five Italians suspected of trafficking arms to Iran (March 2011)
British special forces seize a shipment of 48 rockets in Afghanistan - thought to be from Iran (February 2011)]

Nigeria seizes a shipment of rocket launchers and grenades, labelled “building materials”, thought to have originated in Iran (October 2010)
The UN has become so concerned about Iranian links to illegal arms deals - both imports that violate the arms embargo, and exports that violate international sanctions on Iran - it has set up a special panel of experts to advise the Security Council.

Head of that committee is Salome Zourabichvili, who admits diplomatic efforts to halt the deals have not been 100% successful.

“It has been clear to us from what we’ve seen... that [there is a] continuous trend of Iran violating the sanctions and continuing to supply weapons to different non state organisations.”

Analysts believe Iran has been offering help and assistance to Hamas and Hezbollah and recent evidence put before the US Congress suggests links with al-Qaeda.

A leaked copy of a report for the panel for the Security Council sanctions committee says: “Iran’s circumvention of sanctions across all areas, in particular the use of front companies, concealment methods in shipping, financial transactions and the transfer of conventional arms and related material is wilful and continuing.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13545621

AFP: Ahmadinejad visit to bolster Iran-Sudan ties: envoy
Ahmadinejad visit to bolster Iran-Sudan ties: envoy. (AFP) – Sep 25, 2011. KHARTOUM — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to arrive in ...
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g5sFfg87SjtvfNvQEAWqdB-beePA?docId=CNG.b1c65bdc1e0bef497e1f81f732897709.431

Wikileaks: Iranian weapons pass through Sudan to Hamas - Sudan ...
Dec 19, 2010
December 19, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The United States has attempted to stop Sudan being used as a transit for Iranian arms en route to the ...
http://www.sudantribune.com/Iranian-weapons-pass-through-Sudan,37331

Who is arming Sudan?
London Review of Books (subscription) (blog)-Oct 2, 2012
He’s an arms expert, and my friend and colleague. .... Hisein Kombola, the camp’s chief, told us that in the Nuba Mountains he had been under fire from what he thought were Iranian Shahab rockets, shot from government positions tens of kilometres away. In different places we were shown remnants of the attacks: Claudio said the two-metre-long warhead fragments weren’t from Shahabs, but Chinese Weishi WS-1 rockets. We later found the catalogue of a company promoting them at an African arms fair. At more than four metres long and with a diameter of 302 mm, they are the largest artillery weapons ever used in Sudan, and according to the catalogue can reach targets up to 45 km away – from the government areas of South Kordofan deep into Nuba rebel areas and South Sudanese territory...
In March, on the border in Jaw, Northern rebels shot down an aircraft, a drone that was probably being used to spot future targets. Data observed on the drone suggest it was assembled in Iran, including components from the European Union – in spite of embargos on both Sudan and Iran. We managed to see some of the videos shot by its camera: according to a military aviation researcher who joined us for some of our trips, the metadata are identical to those of samples from video recorders made by a known British company.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/jerome-tubiana/who-is-arming-sudan/

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