DUBAI: Iran’s atomic energy agency alleged on Sunday that hackers acting on behalf of an unidentified foreign country broke into a subsidiary’s network and had free access to its email system.
An anonymous hacking group claimed responsibility for the attack on Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, demanding Tehran release political prisoners arrested in the recent nationwide protests. The group said it leaked 50 gigabytes of internal emails, contracts and construction plans related to Iran’s Russian-backed nuclear power plant in Bushehr. It was unclear whether the breached system contained classified material.
The hack comes as Iran continues to face nationwide unrest first sparked by the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman in police custody for allegedly not adhering to the country’s strict Islamic dress code. On Sunday, Iran’s leading teachers’ association reported that sit-ins canceled classes at multiple schools across the country in protest over the government’s crackdown on student protesters.
The protests first focused on Iran’s state-mandated hijab, or headscarf, for women but transformed into one of the most serious challenges to the country’s ruling clerics. Protesters have clashed with police and even called for the downfall of the Islamic Republic itself. Security forces have fired live ammunition and tear gas to disperse demonstrations, killing over 200 people, according to estimates by rights groups.
Iran’s civil nuclear arm said hackers breached the email system used by a company operating the country’s sole nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr. The agency blamed a “foreign country” for the attack, without elaborating. Iran has previously accused the United States and Israel for cyberattacks that have impaired the country’s infrastructure.
“These illegal efforts are done out of desperation is for attracting public attention,” the organization said.
An anonymous hacking group, calling itself “Black Reward,” published what appeared to be images of contracts, plans and equipment at the Bushehr plant, which went online over a decade ago with help from Russia.
“Unlike Westerners, we do not flirt with criminal mullahs,” the group wrote, announcing the hack on its Telegram channel.
Meanwhile The Coordination Council for Teachers Union, Iran’s leading teachers’ association that has been vocal in the protests, reported that schools, largely in Iran’s Kurdish provinces, heeded its call to boycott classes Sunday in protest over the deaths and detentions of students in the past month of unrest. There was no immediate acknowledgement of the strikes from authorities.
The union shared photos of teachers holding up protest signs saying “Woman, Life, Freedom” instead of teaching at schools in the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj, Marivan, Kermanshah and Saqez, as well as in the West Azerbaijan and mountainous Hamadan provinces.
“Schools have become barracks and tear gas is thrown in the faces of elementary school students,” one teacher wrote in a letter shared by the union. “History will record the names of this brave generation.”
Campuses have long been a flash point for unrest in Iran, including during the 1953 student protests under the Western-backed shah and during the 1999 pro-democracy demonstrations under former reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
At the prestigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, the scene of an hours-long siege by security forces earlier this month that ended with dozens of students arrested, protests erupted as students tore down the barrier dividing men from women in the campus cafeteria, a students’ association said.
“Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” the massive crowd of students shouted at the top of their lungs, pumping their fists in the air.
Hackers breach Iran’s atomic energy agency, protests persist
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Hackers breach Iran’s atomic energy agency, protests persist
- An anonymous hacking group claimed responsibility for the attack, demanding Tehran release political prisoners arrested in the recent nationwide protests
Trump says ‘hopefully’ no need for military action against Iran
- US president said he is speaking with Iran and left open the possibility of avoiding a military operation
- An Iranian military spokesman warned Tehran’s response to any US action would not be limited
PARIS: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he hoped to avoid military action against Iran, which has threatened to strike American bases and aircraft carriers in response to any attack.
Trump said he is speaking with Iran and left open the possibility of avoiding a military operation after earlier warning time was “running out” for Tehran as the United States sends a large naval fleet to the region.
When asked if he would have talks with Iran, Trump told reporters: “I have had and I am planning on it.”
“We have a group headed out to a place called Iran, and hopefully we won’t have to use it,” the US president added, while speaking to media at the premiere of a documentary about his wife Melania.
As Brussels and Washington dialed up their rhetoric and Iran issued stark threats this week, UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for nuclear negotiations to “avoid a crisis that could have devastating consequences in the region.”
An Iranian military spokesman warned Tehran’s response to any US action would not be limited — as it was in June last year when American planes and missiles briefly joined Israel’s short air war against Iran — but would be a decisive response “delivered instantly.”
Brig. Gen. Mohammad Akraminia told state television US aircraft carriers have “serious vulnerabilities” and that numerous American bases in the Gulf region are “within the range of our medium-range missiles.”
“If such a miscalculation is made by the Americans, it will certainly not unfold the way Trump imagines — carrying out a quick operation and then, two hours later, tweeting that the operation is over,” he said.
An official in the Gulf, where states host US military sites, said that fears of a US strike on Iran are “very clear.”
“It would bring the region into chaos, it would hurt the economy not just in the region but in the US and cause oil and gas prices to skyrocket,” the official added.
‘Protests crushed in blood’
Qatar’s leader Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian held a call to discuss “efforts being made to de-escalate tensions and establish stability,” the Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.
The European Union, meanwhile, piled on the pressure by designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a “terrorist organization” over a deadly crackdown on recent mass protests.
“’Terrorist’ is indeed how you call a regime that crushes its own people’s protests in blood,” said EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, welcoming the “overdue” decision.
Though largely symbolic, the EU decision has already drawn a warning from Tehran.
Iran’s military slammed “the illogical, irresponsible and spite-driven action of the European Union,” alleging the bloc was acting out of “obedience” to Tehran’s arch-foes the United States and Israel.
Iranian officials have blamed the recent protest wave on the two countries, claiming their agents spurred “riots” and a “terrorist operation” that hijacked peaceful rallies sparked over economic grievances.
Rights groups have said thousands of people were killed during the protests by security forces, including the IRGC — the ideological arm of Tehran’s military.
In Tehran on Thursday, citizens expressed grim resignation.
“I think the war is inevitable and a change must happen. It can be for worse, or better. I am not sure,” said a 29-year-old waitress, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“I am not in favor of war. I just want something to happen that would result in something better.”
Another 29-year-old woman, an unemployed resident of an upscale neighborhood in northern Tehran, said: “I believe that life has highs and lows and we are now at the lowest point.”
Trump had threatened military action if protesters were killed in the anti-government demonstrations that erupted in late December and peaked on January 8 and 9.
But his more recent statements have turned to Iran’s nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at making an atomic bomb.
On Wednesday, he said “time is running out” for Tehran to make a deal, warning the US naval strike group that arrived in Middle East waters on Monday was “ready, willing and able” to hit Iran.
Conflicting tolls
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it has confirmed 6,479 people were killed in the protests, as Internet restrictions imposed on January 8 continue to slow verification.
But rights groups warn the toll is likely far higher, with estimates in the tens of thousands.
Iranian authorities acknowledge that thousands were killed during the protests, giving a toll of more than 3,000 deaths, but say the majority were members of the security forces or bystanders killed by “rioters.”
Billboards and banners have gone up in the capital Tehran to bolster the authorities’ messages. One massive poster appears to show an American aircraft carrier being destroyed.
