Category Archives: Terror

Iran’s Cyber Forces under IRGC Target Dissenters/Enemies

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NIN is not Nine Inch Nails but rather the Supreme Leader’s tightly controlled internet platform known as the National Internet Network. It operates somewhat like an fee based system, those that can afford and pay more for access and usage get the best speed and less government oversight. The poorer class and the dissenters are controlled by the regime and not only vulnerable to the throttling of service but are subject to phishing operations, hacks and DDoS outages, all at the direction of the regime.

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It almost sounds like a marriage between the U.S. version/marriage of Google, Facebook and NSA, right? Well it is.

The NIN can filter key words and phrases and send users only to the sites it approved, according to the CHRI report. The government has also limited access to thousands of sites and platforms, including Facebook and YouTube. It is attempting to replace search engines like Google with its own state-approved versions.

Iran has also been able to influence how people use the internet through pricing. While there are private internet service providers (ISPs), they are still under government control, allowing state-run infrastructure companies to set up a tiered plan where access to international internet sites costs more than domestic. This drives traffic away from the global internet and to the NIN.

It’s not just internet censorship that Iranians are facing. The report also highlights state-sponsored cyberattacks and phishing schemes. State security agencies like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the armed forces meant to protect the Islamic system, have hacked into individual and private online communications and arrested people on the basis of their content, which is technically illegal under Iranian law.

DDoS attacks, which aim to make specific websites unavailable or limit access to information by flooding them with illegitimate traffic, have become more prominent during politically sensitive times as well, according to the report. During the election in 2016, reformist and centrist candidates like Gaam-e Dovvom faced multiple attacks. The report said many of these are also internal attacks through the government.

Meanwhile, Iranians are not blind to the extensive surveillance they are facing online. As we’ve reported, many internet users use VPNs and other apps to try and circumvent the censorship. And millions of Iranians have turned to the Toronto-born Psiphon app to use the internet during the protests in December and this month. More here.

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Tehran has become increasingly adept at conducting cyber espionage and disruptive attacks against opponents at home and abroad, ranging from Iranian civil society organizations to governmental and commercial institutions in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.

A new report by carnegiendowment.org evaluates Iran’s Cyber threat environment. Just as Iran uses proxies to project its regional power, Tehran often masks its cyber operations using proxies to maintain plausible deniability. Yet such operations can frequently be linked to the country’s security apparatus, namely the Ministry of Intelligence and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

While Iran does not have a public strategic policy with respect to cyberspace, its history demonstrates a rationale for when and why it will engage in attacks. Iran uses its capabilities in response to domestic and international events. As conflict between Tehran and Washington subsided after the 2015 nuclear deal, so too did the cycle of disruptive attacks. However, Iran’s decisionmaking process is obscured and its cyber capabilities are not controlled by the presidency, as evident in cases of intragovernmental hacking.

The report claims that the United States is reliant on an inadequately guarded cyberspace and should anticipate that future conflicts, online or offline, could trigger cyber attacks on U.S. infrastructure. The first priority should be to extend efforts to protect infrastructure and the public, including increased collaboration with regional partners and nongovernmental organizations targeted by Iran. More details here.

The U.S. Army War College recently included this concern: In late-2011, the executive chairman of Google stated, “The Iranians are unusually talented in cyber war for some reason we don’t fully understand.”3 Stopping a cyber adversary from disrupting activity or stealing intellectual property has been the primary concern of government and private sector organizations, but in the military and intelligence communities, there are other concerns about Iran.

Prior to 2009, much of Iran’s cyber efforts were focused internally on countering government dissidence. The influential Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) proposed the development of an Iranian Cyber Army in 2005 to combat internal threats. It sought out professional hackers through voluntary means or by using blackmail and threats to boost its ranks. In early March 2012, Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khameni publicly announced to state media the creation by decree of a new Supreme Council of Cyberspace charged “to oversee the defense of the Islamic Republic’s computer networks and develop new ways of infiltrating or attacking the computer networks of its enemies.”7 It included heads of intelligence, militia, security, media chiefs, and the IRGC. It has its own budget and offices along with the power to enact laws. Additionally, the IRGC stated that a secure internal network for high-level command and control called “Basir” (Persian for perceptive) was created to counter outside threats to online activities.8 However, it is clear from its actions against opposition influences and dissident groups that the regime continues internal censorship and monitoring as well. Furthermore, Reporters Without Borders, in its 2012 annual report of countries that restrict internet access, filter content, and imprison bloggers, “ranked Iran the number one enemy of the Internet…ahead of 11 other countries—including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Syria, China, and Belarus.”9

In late-2011, Iran invested at least $1 billion dollars in cyber technology, infrastructure, and expertise.10 In March 2012, the IRGC claimed it had recruited around 120,000 personnel over the past 3 years to combat “a soft cyber war against Iran.”11 In early-2013, an IRGC general publically claimed Iran had the “fourth biggest cyber power among the world’s cyber armies.”12 Regardless of the numbers, the fact is that Iran’s cyber capability continues to mature. The IRGC has its own Cyber Defense Command which recruits and trains cyber warriors to spy on dissidents on the internet and spread Iranian government propaganda.13 The IRGC also now owns and controls Iran’s largest communication company and manages the skilled cyber technicians and specialists of Iran’s Cyber Army trained to hack into opposition websites and conduct other types of offensive cyber operations. On the law enforcement side, the FETA police (in Persian it literally means Police of the Space of Creating and Exchanging Information) handle typical internet crimes as well as more opaque enforcement activities such as political and security crimes. There are other Iranian organizations and companies recruited and/or affiliated with Iran’s cyber capabilities, either knowingly or by loose association. The full summary is here.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Nuclear Deal, Protests and Boeing

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It is the conglomerate that the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei owns exclusively. “Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam,” or Setad.

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Setad was originally sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in June 2013. The conglomerate “produces billions of dollars in profits for the Iranian regime each year,” said David Cohen, then the Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, at a Senate banking committee hearing that year.

Setad, Cohen said at the time, controls “massive off-the-books investments” hidden from the Iranian people and regulators.

All entities sanctioned for being part of the Iranian government are being taken off the SDN list as part of the nuclear deal, also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), though U.S. persons and entities will still be banned from dealing with them.

In January of 2017, a review by Reuters noted: But a Reuters review of business accords reached since then shows that the Iranian winners so far are mostly companies owned or controlled by the state, including Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Of nearly 110 agreements worth at least $80 billion that have been struck since the deal was reached in July 2015, 90 have been with companies owned or controlled by Iranian state entities, the Reuters analysis shows.

In December of 2017: Treasury Department officials must publish a report chronicling the financial assets of Iran’s top leaders, under a bill that passed the House on Wednesday.

The legislation, which passed 289-135, must still clear the Senate before President Trump can sign it into law. It’s a potential boon to Iranian dissidents against the regime, who stand to gain insight into corruption by top officials.

Related:

Podcast – Upheaval in Iran: Causes and Consequences

Meanwhile, as the protests continue in Iran against the regime and rightly so, questions arise due to not only Senate votes on sanctions but staying with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, meaning the Iran nuclear deal.

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Why is there even a question based on additional facts surfacing in the last year? Well, the left and those that remain with John Kerry and Barack Obama are adding new pressures to stay in the JCPOA. Further, complications arise from those countries that are also part of the deal. They too want the deal sustained.

In a story titled “U.S. security experts back Iran nuclear deal, as Trump faces deadlines,” Reuters reports that a coalition of national security experts want the president to continue the Iran deal. The report claims, without any context, that all of the people who signed a letter in favor of the deal are “national security experts.” Additionally, these “experts” are from an organization called the “National Coalition to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon.”

It turns out, however, that some of those listed on the document have severe conflicts of interests, none of which were disclosed in the letter.

It also turns out that the National Coalition to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon is not an actual organization. A Google search of the group turned up nothing before Monday. The group was created this week with the apparent purpose of garnering support for the nuclear deal. None of this is reported in the Reuters article. It is only revealed through the group’s statement provided on The National Interest website.

The outfit’s title also presumes its members are national security hawks, when this is far from the case.

Members of the “National Coalition” include a who’s who of the prominent organizers of the campaign to rally support for the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Tehran.

Included on the list is Joseph Cirincione, who served as the money man for President Obama’s Iran “echo chamber.” Cirincione has admitted to paying off a “network of 85 organizations and 200 individuals” who were “decisive in the battle for public opinion” over the Iran deal.

Gary Sick, another signee, was one of the chief organizers of the Iran echo chamber. According to the Washington Free Beacon, Sick created an invite-only listserv to distribute pro-Tehran talking points to Obama-friendly journalists and influential figures.

The coalition also includes Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who is a paid lobbyist for Boeing. The aviation company is attempting to secure a multi-billion-dollar jetliner deal with the Iranian regime. If the Iran deal falls through, so does Boeing’s deal.

Paul Pillar, a disgraced former CIA officer who was also on the letter, once drafted talking points arguing that it’s not a big deal if Iran is able to develop a nuclear weapon. “If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, the United States and the West could live with it, without important compromise to U.S. interests,” he wrote, according to Eli Lake of Bloomberg News.

It remains a mystery what President Trump will decide this time around. He has been troubled by Iran’s violent response to countrywide protests. The president has leveraged social media and several executive departments to raise awareness about the plight of Iranian protesters. He has also mulled enacting further sanctions against the regime.

As an aside, there too is pressure from Boeing, they want to protect the sale agreements of planes to Iran such that they have offered to ‘finance’ the payments, essentially layaway. Iran is looking for a method to make payments of $44B to both Air Bus and Boeing. Humm….but that Supreme leader has a major conglomerate remember?

 

 

DoJ’s Bruce Ohr Demoted Again, Project Cassandra?

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That’s it? On second thought, keep him employed to cough up the goods on Project Cassandra. More on that below. As an aside, in late December, Jeff Sessions ordered a complete review of Project Cassandra.

FNC: A Justice Department official demoted late last year for concealing his meetings with the men behind the anti-Trump “dossier” has been stripped of yet another title, Fox News has learned.

Bruce Ohr is no longer head of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.

Separately, sources familiar with the discussions tell Fox News that the Justice Department is expected to comply with demands from the House Intelligence Committee to provide Ohr for an interview. He is scheduled to visit the committee on Jan. 17, sources said.

Fox News first reported in December that Ohr had been demoted from the position of associate deputy attorney general, after it was revealed he had conducted undisclosed meetings with dossier author Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that produced the salacious document.

Fox News also reported that his wife Nellie Ohr worked for Fusion GPS, specifically on research related to the dossier.

At the time of his demotion, DOJ officials told Fox News that Bruce Ohr had been “wearing two hats,” and would fall back to his other title and portfolio – as head of OCDETF.

Now, Ohr has been stripped of that role as well; former deputy director Thomas Padden is now acting director.  It is unclear where Ohr has landed, only that he is still an employee with the Department of Justice.

One DOJ insider joked that Ohr might end up in “one of those offices without a phone.”

Fox News has also confirmed that Bruce Ohr, as the head of OCDETF, was directly involved with Project Cassandra, the interagency investigation spearheaded by the DEA that tracked a massive international drug and money laundering scheme allegedly run by Hezbollah.

The project recently was the subject of a critical and lengthy Politico report looking at how the Obama administration may have hampered the investigation. Those closest to Project Cassandra, including Derek Maltz, the now-retired supervisory DEA agent who was a major player in the operation, claim the project and its potential prosecutions were sidelined by senior Obama administration officials who didn’t want to upset Iran in the lead-up to the historic nuclear deal with Tehran in 2015.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has promised to look into what happened with the investigation.

He said in a statement last month: “While I am hopeful that there were no barriers constructed by the last admission to allowing DEA agents to fully bring all appropriate cases under Project Cassandra, this is a significant issue for the protection of Americans. We will review these matters and give full support to investigations of violent drug trafficking organizations.”

Sources close to the attorney general told Fox News that he was recently made aware of Ohr’s role in Project Cassandra and that Sessions is personally involved in the review and frequently asks for updates.

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The 76 page criminal complaint for Project Cassandra is here.

Hezbollah Business Affairs Component 85 tons of cocaine was sold to Los Zetas one of the most violent Mexican cartels. Bruce Ohr was head of the teams assigned to Project Cassandra.

The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) (2016) announced significant enforcement activity including arrests targeting Lebanese Hizballah’s External Security Organization Business Affairs Component (BAC), which is involved in international criminal activities such as drug trafficking and drug proceed money laundering. These proceeds are used to purchase weapons for Hizballah for its activities in Syria. This ongoing investigation spans the globe and involves numerous international law enforcement agencies in seven countries, and once again highlights the dangerous global nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism.

This effort is part of DEA’s Project Cassandra, which targets a global Hizballah network responsible for the movement of large quantities of cocaine in the United States and Europe. This global network, referred to by law enforcement as the Lebanese Hizballah External Security Organization Business Affairs Component (BAC), was founded by deceased Hizballah Senior Leader Imad Mughniyah and currently operates under the control of Abdallah Safieddine and recent U.S.-designated Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) Adham Tabaja. Members of the Hizballah BAC have established business relationships with South American drug cartels, such as La Oficina de Envigado, responsible for supplying large quantities of cocaine to the European and United States drug markets. Further, the Hizballah BAC continues to launder significant drug proceeds as part of a trade based money laundering scheme known as the Black Market Peso Exchange.

“These drug trafficking and money laundering schemes utilized by the Business Affairs Component provide a revenue and weapons stream for an international terrorist organization responsible for devastating terror attacks around the world,” said DEA Acting Deputy Administrator Jack Riley.  “DEA and our international partners are relentless in our commitment to disrupt any attempt by terrorists and terrorist organizations to leverage the drug trade against our nations. DEA and our partners will continue to dismantle networks who exploit the nexus between drugs and terror using all available law enforcement mechanisms.”

Beginning in February 2015, based on DEA investigative leads, European authorities initiated an operation targeting the network’s criminal activities in that region. Since then, law enforcement authorities, closely supported by DEA, have uncovered an intricate network of money couriers who collect and transport millions of euros in drug proceeds from Europe to the Middle East. The currency is then paid in Colombia to drug traffickers using the Hawala disbursement system. A large portion of the drug proceeds was found to transit through Lebanon, and a significant percentage of these proceeds are benefitting terrorist organizations, namely Hizballah.

This investigation is a result of leads developed during the investigation into the Lebanese Canadian Bank.

The combination of aggressive international law enforcement investigations and Treasury’s ongoing sanctions (see below) pressure shows the scope of the global commitment to diminish the ability of Hizballah and its financial supporters to move funds worldwide.

Enforcement Action

With DEA and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) working closely with foreign counterparts in France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, authorities arrested top leaders of the European cell of this Lebanese Hizballah External Security Organization BAC last week. The most significant arrest was of the U.S.-designated SDGT Mohamad Noureddine, a Lebanese money launderer who has worked directly with Hizballah’s financial apparatus to transfer Hizballah funds via his Lebanon-based company Trade Point International S.A.R.L. and maintained direct ties to Hizballah commercial and terrorist elements in both Lebanon and Iraq.

The CPB National Targeting Center partnered with DEA and international counterparts such as Europol in this investigation. CBP’s continued cooperation with the DEA , and European law enforcement counterparts is a vital component in dismantling complex global drug trafficking and money laundering networks as well as enhancing the security of the United States border.

U.S. Treasury Sanctions

Separately, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced sanctions last week targeted Hizballah’s financial support network by designating Hizballah-affiliated money launderers Noureddine and Hamdi Zaher El Dine, as well as Trade Point International S.A.R.L, a company owned or controlled by Noureddine, pursuant to Executive Order 13224. This order targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism.  Noureddine and El Dine were designated for providing financial services to or in support of Hizballah, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.  Trade Point International S.A.R.L. was designated for being owned or controlled by Noureddine. As a result of Treasury’s action, all assets of the designated individuals or entities that are located in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are frozen, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

As part of its designation, Adam J. Szubin, Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, stated that, “Hizballah needs individuals like Mohamad Noureddine and Hamdi Zaher El Dine to launder criminal proceeds for use in terrorism and political destabilization.  We will continue to target this vulnerability, and expose and disrupt such enablers of terrorism wherever we find them.”

Participating offices and agencies:

DEA Philadelphia, DEA Miami, DEA Newark, DEA New York, DEA Special Operations Division, DEA Bilateral Investigative Unit, DEA country offices in Europe, as well as Bogota and Cartagena
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)
U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
EUROPOL
EUROJUST

CDC Planning for a Nuclear Attack

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“Join us for this session of Grand Rounds to learn what public health programs have done on a federal, state, and local level to prepare for a nuclear detonation,” urges the CDC email advising people on one of the agency’s mailing lists about the session. “Learn how planning and preparation efforts for a nuclear detonation are similar and different from other emergency response planning efforts.”

The CDC holds grand rounds virtually monthly on topics such as birth defects prevention, diseases spread by ticks, and sodium reduction. A previous grand rounds on radiological and nuclear disaster preparedness was offered in March 2010. More here.

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Hawaii has already been preparing and practicing.

Perhaps CNN and MSNBC would do well to report this rather than the constant harangue of Donald Trump… CNN kinda has reported this, but you had to look hard to find it.

Welcome to 2018. It’s been an apocalyptic start to the new year. And according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the worst could be yet to come.

The agency wants the American public to get ready for the possibility of a nuclear strike, reports Politico, and it has posted a notice for a Jan. 16 briefing titled “Public Health Response to a Nuclear Detonation.” The session in Atlanta, Georgia will include experts on radiation and disaster preparedness and discuss what federal, state and local governments are doing to prepare.

The CDC is pictured. | AP Photo Over the weekend, a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under two presidents said the U.S. is closer to nuclear war with North Korea “than we have ever been.” | AP Photo

While they are meeting, here is a 204 page document for review.

Kinda serious here:

The CDC wants the public to be prepared for nuclear war.

The agency has posted a notice touting a Jan. 16 briefing about the work that federal, state and local governments are doing in case of a possible nuclear strike.

CDC on Friday said that the event has been in the works since last April.

The briefing is part of the agency’s monthly “Grand Rounds” sessions at its Atlanta headquarters. Upcoming briefings are mostly devoted to more conventional public health concerns, such as childhood vaccinations and hepatitis C. More here.

*** Here is a recommendation document by government agencies for review.

While a nuclear detonation is unlikely, it would have devastating results and there would be limited time to take critical protection steps. Despite the fear surrounding such an event, planning and preparation can lessen deaths and illness. For instance, most people don’t realize that sheltering in place for at least 24 hours is crucial to saving lives and reducing exposure to radiation. While federal, state, and local agencies will lead the immediate response efforts, public health will play a key role in responding.

Join us for this session of Grand Rounds to learn what public health programs have done on a federal, state, and local level to prepare for a nuclear detonation. Learn how planning and preparation efforts for a nuclear detonation are similar and different from other emergency response planning efforts.

 

 

UNRWA De-Funded by the United States, Finally, Sorta

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Primer: April – August 1948: More than 700,000 Palestine refugees are displaced as a result of the Arab-Israeli War. Per the United Nations Relief and Works Agency website. So, we have a generational refugee condition, where they are refugees in essentially their own land…let that sink in.

UNRWA human development and humanitarian services encompass primary and vocational education, primary health care, relief and social services, infrastructure and camp improvement, microfinance and emergency response, including in situations of armed conflict.

Bleh…..after 70 years….it still has to be funded? Did you catch that set of words ‘armed conflict’? Even the left leaning Huffington Post agrees, the Palestinians DON’T want peace.

The Palestinians not only have rejected one offer after another for a peaceful settlement in the past nearly 70 years, but also, tragically, their misguided actions now make any chance of an accord going forward still less likely.

Friday’s UN Security Council resolution is a case in point.

If the goal was to increase the chance of Palestinian statehood alongside Israel (and not in its place!), it was an abysmal failure, despite the lopsided vote. Those diplomats who rushed to applaud the outcome – and I’ll set aside thuggish countries like Venezuela that don’t bring a shred of good will to the UN table – should think twice about what they actually achieved.

If they wanted to excoriate Israel, a longstanding vocation of too many UN member states, then they can thump their chests, even if, alas, they habitually reserve such scrutiny for the only democratic nation in the Middle East. But for those truly committed to advancing prospects for peace, they took a big step backwards, once again falling into the Palestinian trap.

*** The Palestinians have a capital it is called Ramallah. Image result for ramallah palestinians

And Israel has a capital, Jerusalem. Image result for jerusalem photo

The Palestinians want peace, just not with Jews.

So, when the United States suspended funding to UNRWA….it was not all the funding, don’t be fooled. The United States gives an estimated $390,000,000 to UNRWA each year. Add that to the collection of other nations’ contributions and UNRWA is hardly out of business.

The United States administration froze a $125 million grant to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN’s agency for “Palestinian refugees”, which was supposed to be delivered on January 1, Channel 10 News reported on Friday, citing three Western diplomats.

The amount frozen is one-third of the annual funding the United States provides the organization, according to the report.

The three diplomats, who asked to remain anonymous because of the political sensitivity of the issue, told Channel 10 the grant had been frozen until the end of the reexamination of U.S. aid to the Palestinians, which began in recent days. According to the diplomats, officials in the administration have informed UN officials in the past two days that President Donald Trump is considering cutting this amount completely and could even increase the cut to $180 million, which would be half the total U.S. funding for UNRWA.

The cutting in the UN funding to UNRWA is a U.S. sanction against the organization, which has come under strong criticized from both the United States and Israel, as well as against the Palestinian Arabs, in an attempt to pressure them to renew peace talks with Israel.

News of the freezing of the grant came as a meeting took place in the White House discussing the cutting of aid to the Palestinian Authority and to UNRWA.

The meeting followed Trump’s tweets earlier this week in which he expressed doubt over the usefulness of American aid to the Palestinians, given their refusal to resume peace talks with Israel.

The United States is the largest single donor to UNRWA, providing approximately a fourth of the organization’s budget.

Reports in Israel on Thursday indicated that the Israeli Foreign Ministry is opposed to Trump’s planned cut in the aid to UNRWA, but on Friday Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett said that cutting aid to UNRWA is the correct move.

For years, UNRWA has been a target for criticism in light of Hamas’s activity in its educational institutions and the use of its facilities by Palestinian Arab terrorist organizations in Gaza.

UNRWA was documented storing Hamas rockets and weapons “designed to kill Israeli citizens” in its schools, a fact which the UNRWA chief admitted himself.

In addition, the organization has actively taken part in inciting anti-Semitic violence.

By the way, it is called a global diaspora regarding where and how many Palestinians live across the globe.

The countries outside the Palestinian territories with significant Palestinian populations are: