Iran repelled large cyberattack on Sunday

In 2021, a large cyberattack on Iranian petrol stations was said by Tehran to likely be caused by Israel. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 28 April 2025
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Iran repelled large cyberattack on Sunday

  • Iran has in the past accused its arch-foe Israel of being behind cyberattacks
  • In 2021, a large cyberattack on Iranian petrol stations was said by Tehran to likely be caused by Israel

DUBAI: Iran repelled a large cyberattack on its infrastructure on Sunday, said the head of its Infrastructure Communications Company, a day after a powerful explosion damaged its most important container port and another round of talks with the US over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.
“One of the most widespread and complex cyberattacks against the country’s infrastructure was identified and preventive measures were taken,” Behzad Akbari said on Monday, according to semi-official Tasnim news agency, without giving more detail.
Tehran and Washington concluded a third round of nuclear talks on Saturday in Oman, on the same day Iran’s biggest port of Bandar Abbas was rocked by a large explosion whose cause remains unknown.
Chemicals at the port were suspected to have fueled the explosion, but the exact cause was not clear and Iran’s Defense Ministry denied international media reports that the blast may be linked to the mishandling of solid fuel used for missiles.
Iran has in the past accused its arch-foe Israel of being behind cyberattacks. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure should be entirely dismantled — not just limited to prevent the development of nuclear weapons.
In 2021, a large cyberattack on Iranian petrol stations was said by Tehran to likely be caused by Israel. In 2023, a similar but larger cyberattack disrupted about 70 percent of petrol stations, with a group called “Predatory Sparrow” claiming the attack as retaliation to “the aggression of the Islamic Republic and its proxies in the region.”


Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

Updated 24 January 2026
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Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.

Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.