Tag Archives: targeted killings Iran

Paranoia: What Happens When the Enemy Can See You Naked

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During the 2025 Israel/U.S. war against Iran, Israeli authorities, and a pro-Israeli hacking group called Predatory Sparrow, targeted financial organizations that Iranians use to move money and sidestep the U.S.-led economic blockade…Predatory Sparrow…crippled Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah, which services Iran’s armed forces and helps them pay suppliers abroad, knocking out its online banking services and cash machines…The group also breached Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, popular with locals for transferring money overseas. The hackers extracted about $100 million in funds and forced the platform to shut down, according to the exchange.

Iran’s government pulled the plug on much of the country’s online activities to prevent further attacks… Non-Iranian websites were blocked. Citizens were warned against using foreign phones or messaging platforms that it claimed could collect audio and location data for Israeli spies. Government officials were banned from using laptops and smartwatches.

Paranoia swept through the Iranian population as the attacks, both physical and cyber, mounted. “It’s better to cut [the internet] off. Israel can see everything,” said Mohammad Ghorbaniyan, a Tehran-based money changer whom the U.S. sanctioned several years ago for allegedly aiding Iranian hackers…Predatory Sparrow has been wreaking havoc on Iran since at least 2021. In earlier hacks, the group disabled gas-station payment systems across the country and triggered a fire at an Iranian steel plant. 

For their operation against Nobitex, the hackers managed to obtain the keys for the exchange’s cryptocurrency wallets, which were held by key personnel within the company…Predatory Sparrow then “burned” the stolen $100 million by sending the tokens to other digital wallets the group itself couldn’t access. These wallets’ addresses, which are made up of long strings of numbers and letters, contained profane phrases like “F—IRGCterrorists.”

Excerpt from Angus Berwick, How Israel-Aligned Hackers Hobbled Iran’s Financial System, WSJ, June 29, 2025

How to Kill Scientists and Get Away with It

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When Israel’s attacks on Iran began before dawn on June 13, 2025 explosions shattered the homes of some of Iran’s top scientists… All nine were killed in near-simultaneous attacks to prevent them from going into hiding…The attack on the scientists was considered so fantastical by even its planners that it was called “Operation Narnia,” after the fictional C.S. Lewis series…A week after the June 13 attacks, Israel used a drone to kill another scientist who was being kept in what was supposed to be a safe house in Tehran. The person hasn’t been named…The deadly airstrikes were the first to target Iran’s nuclear scientists since 2020, when Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was gunned down with a remote-controlled weapon. Israel has never denied or confirmed its role in the deaths of five Iranian scientists between 2010 and 2020.

Among the most important targets was Fereydoon Abbasi-Devani, the former head of the Atomic Agency of Iran and one of the founders of Iran’s nuclear weapons-related work…Another killed scientist was Mohammad Mehdi Teranchi, who led a unit under Fakhrizadeh focusing on high explosives, which are needed to detonate a nuclear weapon…

Iran has used universities like Shahid Beheshti, the Sharif University of Technology and Malek Ashtar University to keep alive its nuclear-weapons expertise over the past two decades….At these universities, Iran often matches up its nuclear scientists on experiments and other studies with younger students. Two of the scientists killed on June 13, Ahmadreza Zolfaghari and Abdulhamid Minouchehr, published an article in the Annals of Nuclear Energy in June 2024 that used advanced computer modeling to show how neutron sources behave in a chain reaction. That information can be used for civilian purposes, like building a nuclear reactor, or to help trigger a chain reaction in a nuclear weapon. 

Excerpt from Laurence Norman, How Israel Killed Iran’s Top Nuclear Scientists, WSJ, June 29, 2025

When a State Collapses, Who Survives: the case of Iran

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In mid-June 2025, Iran flew at least four civilian aircraft to the Omani capital of Muscat for safekeeping. One of the planes included Iran’s presidential Airbus A340, which landed in Muscat on June 18, 2025 according to flight trackers. 

Arab officials were surprised to learn the planes were empty of passengers. Instead, they said, they carried cash and assets, which Iranians weren’t allowed to offload because of sanctions. The planes themselves were also valuable as emergency exits for top officials. The precautions show the level of pressure on Iran’s rulers during the war (Israel-Iran war of 2025). They had to find a way forward with no control of their own airspace and no help from their militias

Excerpt from S. Raghavan et al., Life in Iran After the Strikes: Executions, Arrests and Paranoia, WSJ, June 28, 2025

The Unintentional Making of a Global Power: Iran

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In 2024, Iran, under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s leadership, thwarted decades of U.S. pressure and emerged from years of isolation largely by aligning itself with Russia and China…Iran’s economy remains battered by U.S. sanctions, but oil sales to China and weapons deals with Russia have offered financial and diplomatic lifelines…Today, Tehran poses a greater threat to American allies and interests in the Middle East than at any point since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979. 

Iran’s military footprint reaches wider and deeper than ever. Iranian-backed armed groups have hit Saudi oil facilities with missiles and paralyzed global shipping in the Red Sea. They have dominated politics in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, and launched the most devastating strike on Israel in decades, when Hamas attacked in October. Iran launched its first direct military attack from its soil on Israel in April 2024. It has also orchestrated attacks on opponents in Europe and beyond, Western officials say. 

“In many respects, Iran is stronger, more influential, more dangerous, more threatening than it was 45 years ago,” said Suzanne Maloney, director of the foreign-policy program at the Brookings Institution, who advised Democratic and Republican administrations on Iran policy. 

U.S. policy has at times unintentionally contributed to Iran’s strength. The 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein removed a sworn enemy from Iran’s borders. Washington’s failure to stabilize postwar Iraq bolstered Tehran’s influence…

Excerpts from Sune Engel Rasmussen and Laurence Norman, How Iran Defied the U.S. to Become an International Power, WSJ, July 2, 2024