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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Iranian cyber warfare commander shot dead in suspected assassination
The head of Iran’s cyber warfare programme has been shot dead, triggering
further accusations that outside powers are carrying out targeted
assassinations of key figures in the country’s security apparatus.
Damien McElroy
By Damien McElroy, and Ahmad Vahdat
8:00PM BST 02 Oct 2013
Mojtaba Ahmadi, who served as commander of the Cyber War Headquarters, was
found dead in a wooded area near the town of Karaj, north-west of the
capital, Tehran. Five Iranian nuclear scientists and the head of the country
’s ballistic missile programme have been killed since 2007. The regime has
accused Israel’s external intelligence agency, the Mossad, of carrying out
these assassinations.
Ahmadi was last seen leaving his home for work on Saturday. He was later
found with two bullets in the heart, according to Alborz, a website linked
to the Revolutionary Guard Corps. “I could see two bullet wounds on his
body and the extent of his injuries indicated that he had been assassinated
from a close range with a pistol,” an eyewitness told the website.
The commander of the local police said that two people on a motorbike had
been involved in the assassination.
The Facebook page of the officers of the Cyber War Headquarters confirmed
that Ahmadi had been one of their commander and posted messages of
condolence. But Alborz users warned that the openly accessible book of
condolence could harm Iran’s national security.
“Stop giving more information about him. The counter-revolutionaries will
take advantage of his murder,” said one post. “It sounds like a hit job
for a security officer of this importance”.
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Subsequently, a statement from the Imam Hassan Mojtaba division of the
Revolutionary Guard Corps said that Ahmadi’s death was being investigated.
It warned against speculating “prematurely about the identity of those
responsible for the killing”.
Western officials said the information was still being assessed, but
previous deaths have been serious blows to Iran’s security forces. Tighter
security measures around leading commanders and nuclear scientists have
instilled a culture of fear in some of the most sensitive parts of the
security establishment.
The last victim of a known assassination was Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a
chemist who worked in the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, who died when
an explosive device blew up on his car in January last year.
The death of Ahmadi, a leading specialist in cyber defences, could be an
extension of this campaign of subterfuge. Iran has been accused of carrying
out a number of cyber attacks detected in the West. Shashank Joshi, an
expert at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said this was seen as
a lesser threat than the nuclear programme. “Iran’s cyber attacks on
Israel and elsewhere in the region are a rising threat and a growing threat,
but it hasn’t yet been seen as a major and sustained onslaught, so it
would be pretty novel and significant to take this step in the field of
cyber-warfare at this time,” he said.
The Revolutionary Guard has also been accused of lending its expertise to
Syria’s regime, helping it to hack Western targets through a body known as
the Syrian Electronic Army.
The killing of Ahmadi coincides with a new diplomatic effort by President
Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s newly elected leader. He has voiced the hope that
Iran’s confrontation with America and the leading Western powers over its
nuclear ambitions can be settled within months. |
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