Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Iran has emerged as a source of dual concern for the United States as the presidential campaign draws to a close.
Prosecutors alleged that Tehran attempted to steal former President Donald Trump’s campaign information by hacking election officials. And U.S. officials have accused him of plotting to kill Trump and other former officials.
Assassination plots and hacking are not new strategies for Iran.
Iran recognized the value and danger of hacking in the early 2000s, when the Stuxnet virus, believed to have been distributed by Israel and the United States, attempted to damage Iran’s nuclear program. Since then, hackers believed to be conducting state-linked operations have targeted the Trump campaign, Iranian expatriates and domestic government officials.
The history of assassinations goes back even further. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s perceived enemies living abroad have been killed or kidnapped.
Let’s look at Iran’s history of targeting its enemies:
For many, Iran’s actions are traced to the emergence of the Stuxnet computer virus. Released in the 2000s, Stuxnet broke into the controls of a uranium enrichment centrifuge at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, speeding up and ultimately destroying itself.
Iranian scientists initially believed the damage was caused by mechanical failure. But eventually Iran looked for ways to remove the affected equipment and attack its enemies online.
A 2020 report from Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies soberly noted, “Iran has had an outstanding teacher in the new art of cyber warfare.”
This was acknowledged by the National Security Agency in documents leaked to The Intercept in 2015 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden investigating a cyberattack that destroyed hard drives at Saudi Arabia’s state oil company. Iran is accused of carrying out attacks called Shamoon in 2012 and 2017.
“Iran, which was the victim of a similar cyberattack targeting its oil industry in April 2012, has demonstrated a clear ability to learn from the capabilities and actions of other countries,” the document says.
There were also domestic considerations. The controversy over hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in 2009 sparked green movement protests. Twitter’s website, which reports on protests, was defaced by a self-described “Iranian cyber army.” There have been allegations that the Revolutionary Guard, the main power base of Iran’s theocracy, oversaw ‘cyber armies’ and other hackers.
Meanwhile, Iran itself has been hacked repeatedly in embarrassing incidents. This includes mass closures of gas stations across Iran, as well as surveillance cameras at Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison and even broadcasts on state television.
Iran’s hacking attacks come as the country faces a tense international environment surrounding Israel’s conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s enrichment of uranium to near-weapons-grade levels, and the possibility of Trump becoming president again. It is likely that this will continue.
The growth of 3G and 4G mobile internet services in Iran has made it easier for the general public and potential hackers to access the internet. Iran has more than 50 major universities with computer science or information technology programs. At least three of Iran’s top schools are thought to have links to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Guards, providing potential hackers for security forces.
Iranian hacking attempts on US targets have included banks and even a small dam near New York City, and attacks on US prosecutors linked to the Guard.
Russia is considered the biggest foreign threat to the U.S. election, but officials have been concerned about Iran. Hacking attempts on presidential campaigns have relied on phishing. In other words, many misleading emails were sent in the hopes that some recipients would accidentally gain access to sensitive information.
Amin Sabeti, a digital security expert specializing in Iran, said this tactic works.
“It’s scalable, affordable, and requires no skill set. Because they put five crazy people in their Tehran office who are fighting hard and they send out tens of thousands of emails. “10 is enough,” he said.
For Iran, hacking targeting the United States creates chaos, undermines the Trump campaign and offers the potential for obtaining secret information.
“I can’t tell you how many attempts have been made on my email and social media over more than a decade,” said Holly Dagres, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Iran. “The Iranians are not targeting me because I have useful information in my inbox or direct messages. Rather, they hope to use my name and think tank affiliation to target others and eventually connect them to senior U.S. officials who may have useful intelligence and intelligence related to Iran.”
Iran has vowed to exact revenge on Trump and others in the former administration for the 2020 drone strike that killed prominent Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad.
In July, authorities said they were aware of the Iranian threat to Trump and had beefed up security. Iran was not linked to the assassination attempts against Trump in Florida and Pennsylvania. A Pakistani man who spent time in Iran was recently indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of plotting assassinations in the United States, including the assassination of Trump.
Officials take Iran’s threats seriously, given Iran’s history of targeting its enemies.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said “Islam grew up with blood,” hinting at how Iran would target its perceived enemies.
Khomeini said, “The great prophet of Islam held the Quran in one hand and a sword in the other.”
Even before Iran established a network of allied militias in the Middle East, it was suspected of targeting enemies abroad, starting with members of the former government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Attention was drawn to those perceived as opposing theocracy, both at home and abroad, where mass executions occurred in 1988.
Outside Iran, so-called “serial killings” have targeted activists, journalists and other critics. One of the significant incidents involving Iran was the shooting at a restaurant in Germany that killed three Iranian-Kurdish figures and an interpreter. In 1997, a German court implicated Iran’s top leaders in the shooting, which led most European Union countries to withdraw their ambassadors.
Iran’s targeted killings have since slowed but not stopped. U.S. prosecutors have linked Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to a 2011 plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Meanwhile, an Israeli assassination campaign targeting scientists working on Iran’s nuclear program is suspected.
In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear deal that drastically reduced its enrichment in return for the lifting of sanctions. Two years later, Trump was elected promising to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the agreement. As the companies withdrew from Iran, Tehran resumed a campaign targeting opponents abroad, but this time arresting them and bringing them to Iran for trial.
Belgium arrested Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi in 2018 and eventually found him guilty of foiling a bomb attack on exiled Iranian rebels. Iran has also increasingly relied on criminal networks for some of its attempts, such as what U.S. prosecutors described as a plot to kill or kidnap opposition activist Masih Alinejad.
Among those targeted after Soleimani’s death was former US national security adviser John Bolton. The United States has offered a $300,000 reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Revolutionary Guard members who plotted to kill Bolton.
FBI agents quoted Guard Gen. Esmail Ghaani as saying in a 2022 court filing: “Whenever necessary, we take revenge on the Americans without them, with their help on their side and at home.” I did it.
