{"id":210897,"date":"2020-07-25T06:52:04","date_gmt":"2020-07-25T06:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=210897"},"modified":"2020-07-27T07:33:06","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T07:33:06","slug":"israel-leaking-evidence-of-its-involvement-in-covert-iran-bombing-campaign-that-threatens-to-spark-a-wider-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=210897","title":{"rendered":"Israel Leaking Evidence of Its Involvement in Covert Iran Bombing Campaign that Threatens to Spark a Wider War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raul Diego \u2013 Mint Press News July 22, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Israel is believed to be behind several recent acts of sabotage against Iranian civilian and military infrastructure, including a hospital<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, that have taken the lives of at least 19 people and has further disrupted an economy already in the throes of a devastating downturn brought on by a global pandemic and crippling economic sanctions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leaks emerging out of Israel have identified the apartheid state as the rouge actor wreaking havoc on Iran. Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, was outed<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>by a political rival as the source of anonymous leaks linking Israel to the conflagration at a Iranian nuclear facility. A different story had made the rounds earlier when an unknown \u201cIranian dissident group calling itself the Homeland Cheetahs\u201d reportedly<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>contacted the BBC to take credit for the blast and claimed that it was part of an \u201congoing campaign of sabotage against Iranian strategic sites.\u201d But, neither the story nor the group\u2019s existence were ever confirmed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first in a string of recent fires and explosions<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>took place on June 25 when a \u201chuge<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u201d blast took down a power plant in Shiraz, east of Tehran, and caused an extensive blackout in several parts of the nation\u2019s capital. Two more military sites<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0believed\u00a0to house nuclear and missile production facilities on the eastern edge of Tehran were also attacked over the course of these last few weeks and just two days ago, on July 19, a new explosion rocked a power station in Iran\u2019s Isfahan Province in what is also believed to be the work of Israeli cyberattacks, bringing the total of military and civilian sites targeted to eight.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most high profile incident occurred on July 2, when the Iranian nuclear site in Natanz was targeted in a cyberattack which caused an explosion at the underground facility, reportedly<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u201cset[ting] back the Iranian nuclear program by two months.\u201d The attack was egregious enough to elicit an unusual statement from the Iranian state news agency, blaming Israel<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0and the U.S. directly for the incident.<\/span><\/p>\n

With these attacks, Israel intends to provoke a belligerent response by Rouhani\u2019s government, while also seeding a narrative of cyber warfare as the next theater of global combat, which perfectly dovetails with Israel\u2019s burgeoning partnership with the U.S. National Security state to build a juggernaut of mass <\/a>surveillance<\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Exhibit A, B and C<\/h2>\n

The precedent for Israeli cyberattacks on Iran is strong. Perhaps the most salient example is U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet project, a computer virus developed in tandem with the U.S. and an \u201celite<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u201d Unit 8200 team, led by Lior Div \u2013 an Israeli software engineer who went on to found a company called Cybereason<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, which has been running doomsday cyberattack scenarios for the upcoming 2020 U.S. elections.<\/span><\/p>\n

The project was first authorized<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>by the Bush administration and involved the recreation<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>of Iran\u2019s nuclear centrifuges, according to \u201cexperts\u201d at Israel\u2019s Dimona complex. It was carried out a decade ago at the same facility targeted in early July. The comparable \u201ccomplexity\u201d of the covert operation has led many familiar with the matter to the conclusion that Israel was also behind the latest round of sabotage on Iran\u2019s underground nuclear facility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only six years later, a cyberwarfare program code named \u201cNitro Zeus\u201d was developed<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0in the early days of the Obama administration as a backup \u201cin case the diplomatic effort to limit its nuclear program failed and led to a military conflict.\u201d The operation was intended to take down Iran\u2019s air defenses, power grid, and communications systems, but was \u201cshelved\u201d after the JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal) was signed. In tandem with Nitro Zeus, \u201cAmerican intelligence agencies\u201d were busy making separate plans to disable the Fordo nuclear enrichment site through a cyberattack. The project was intended as a follow-up to the program code named \u201cOlympic Games,\u201d which included the Stuxnet virus, as well as the Flame<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0malware, that attacked computers running Windows operating systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given this robust history of cyber warfare against Iran by the U.S. and Israel,\u00a0consensus<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0has been quick to build around the idea that these same actors have, in fact, been behind all of the recent attacks in Iran. Furthermore, according to NSC member, Eric Brewer, it\u2019s enough that the Iranian leadership believes that it is the case. \u201cGiven that these [attacks] are hitting all across Iran at military and civilian locations\u201d, he stated<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, \u201cthat is going to cause Iran\u2019s threat perceptions to spike.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s trump card<\/h2>\n

Barely two days into 2020, the Trump administration assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and set the stage for a relentless campaign of provocation against the Middle Eastern nation that has persisted until today. The patently illegal hit job on one of Iran\u2019s top military leaders was a textbook application of Israel\u2019s so-called Octopus Doctrine<\/a><\/strong><\/span>; <\/em>brainchild of Israeli Defense Minister, formerly Education Minister, Naftali Bennet, who once stated that the world could be living with conflict in the Middle East<\/a>\u00a0for 100 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The doctrine<\/em>\u00a0entails murdering \u201cIranian advisers and officials who direct and support proxy forces in other countries.\u201d Trump\u2019s willingness to do the bidding of Israel\u2019s policy of aggression should come as no surprise and is the reason Netanyahu and company are trying to take advantage of the most Israel-friendly administration in American political history, putting as much pressure as possible on Iran, which is presently reeling with unemployment rates hovering around 35<\/a>\u00a0percent<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0and a large informal service sector that is languishing under coronavirus-imposed lockdowns. The conditions for catastrophic civil unrest in Iran haven\u2019t been this ripe since the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh seventy years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

The seeding of a cyber warfare narrative has been coming from virtually every corner of the Israeli state. Tamir Pardo, former head of Mossad, recently claimed<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0that the COVID-19 outbreak would unleash a \u201cglobal scale crisis on three fronts: medical, social, and financial\u201d and that \u201ccyberwars\u201d would be the method of choice for cash-strapped nations looking for \u201ccheaper solutions\u201d at \u201cstate level, between companies, and between criminal organizations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As is the case with many former Mossad and IDF personnel, Pardo is currently part of a cybersecurity company called XM Cyber<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, which offers the very services the cyber warriors he envisions will need to plan out their offensive or defensive operations. \u201cWhoever finds a remedy or vaccine for Covid-19 will become a major target for attackers\u201d, Pardo asserts, predicting the emergence of \u201ccyber conflicts between political and commercial adversaries\u201d in a kind of cybernetic dog-eat-dog future.<\/span><\/p>\n

A matter of cyber convenience<\/h2>\n

In May, a purported Iranian cyberattack on six Israeli water treatment plants<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0that was ostensibly foiled by Israeli \u201ccyber\u201d authorities took place. Stories were circulated<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0in the aftermath about how the attack \u201ccould have sickened hundreds,\u201d despite the fact that no evidence of an attack of any kind was ever produced. Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennet pushed for a \u201cstrong\u201d response, which eventually manifested as a cyberattack<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0targeting Iran\u2019s Shahid Rajaee Port terminal in Bandar Abbas on the strategic Strait of Hormuz.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another supposed cyberattack on Israel\u2019s water system took place<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0on July 17. Israeli officials claim that \u201ctwo attacks were aimed at agricultural water pumps in the Upper Galilee and infrastructure in the centre of the country,\u201d and while no culprit was named, it is implied that Iran carried out these attacks, as well. Israeli media<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>has been propagating this narrative since the first ostensible cyberattack on the water processing plants, which \u2013 like the last one \u2013 resulted in no damage deeming it a \u201csignificant escalation by Iran and a crossing of a red line.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The head of Israel\u2019s National Cyber Directorate warned<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>on that occasion that we were just seeing \u201cthe beginning\u201d and that a \u201ccyber winter is coming.\u201d Other, more \u201cmoderate\u201d Israeli voices, like Amos Yadlin, the head of the Institute for National Security Studies, and a former head of IDF military intelligence, have looked approvingly upon this shift in focus for Israeli policy. \u201cAccording to foreign sources, it appears that the prime minister focused this week on Iran rather than [his plan for West Bank] annexation,\u201d he tweeted<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0last Friday, adding that this was the very policy the veteran of the Yom Kippur war has been recommending.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf Israel is accused by official sources\u201d, he continued, \u201cthen we need to be operationally prepared for the possibility of an Iranian reaction (through cyber, firing missiles from Syria or a terror attack overseas).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The drumbeat for war with Iran seems to be intensifying as 2020 reaches its halfway point and the narrative that cyberattacks are to play an inciting role in the coming conflict is being drilled into the collective mind. The U.S. and Israel are committed to exploiting invisible and unverifiable \u201cattacks\u201d on systems, which they themselves have built and sold to the world with backdoors<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0to the very technology they claim are the target of \u201cmalicious actors\u201d, who also happen to be in the way of their global interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran, for its part, is comfortable stating that \u201cthe Iranian government does not engage in cyberwarfare\u201d, as Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran\u2019s mission to the UN, told<\/a>\u00a0the Washington Post<\/em>. We can take his word for it, or trust the claims<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>of Israeli cybersecurity firm ClearSky, which \u201cclosely tracks Iranian hacking activity\u201d and has put forward unsubstantiated accounts of Iranian hacking of U.S. pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences Inc. The choice may be one between war and peace.<\/span><\/p>\n

Raul Diego<\/em><\/strong> is a MintPress News Staff Writer, independent photojournalist, researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2019s campaign against Iran may be entering a new and dangerous phase <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Iran","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=210897"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210900,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210897\/revisions\/210900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=210897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=210897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=210897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}