Eye on Iran: Iran 'Mobilizing' for Cyberwar with West: Experts

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.    Top Stories AFP: "Iran is busy acquiring the technical know-how to launch a potentially crippling cyber-attack on the United States and its allies, experts told a congressional hearing on Thursday, urging the US to step up its defensive measures. 'Over the past three years, the Iranian regime has invested heavily in both defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace,' said Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council. 'Equally significant, its leaders now increasingly appear to view cyber-warfare as a potential avenue of action against the United States,' he told a House Homeland Security subcommittee. Patrick Meehan, Republican chairman of the committee, also sounded an alarm over the cyber-security threat posed by Iran to western nations. 'As Iran's illicit nuclear program continues to inflame tensions between Tehran and the West, I am struck by the emergence of another possible avenue of attack emanating from Iran -- the possibility that Iran could conduct a cyber attack against the US homeland,' he said." http://t.uani.com/Jr5Lip WSJ: "The Obama administration is intensifying its scrutiny of Lebanon's financial system, concerned that Syria, Iran and the militant group Hezbollah are using Beirut's banks to evade international sanctions and fund their activities. Despite action by Beirut and Washington over the past 14 months to close banks and sanction individuals, the Treasury Department and Drug Enforcement Administration are continuing an aggressive probe into an alleged Hezbollah-linked money-laundering operation, U.S. officials said. They allege the operation involves hundreds of millions of dollars in drug-sales revenues from a Lebanese narco-trafficker that they say have gone to the Lebanese militia and political group. The Treasury Department also is pressing Lebanese financial regulators to more closely monitor local banks that have operations in Damascus and Tehran, senior U.S. officials said." http://t.uani.com/Ivh06h NYT: "One day after Israeli newspapers reported that the nation's top general had said economic and diplomatic pressures against Iran were beginning to succeed, his superior, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, said Thursday that the chances 'appear low' that the Iranian government would bow to international pressure and halt its nuclear program. The remarks by Israel's top defense officials added to uncertainty over the unity of the nation's leadership in its approach to Iran's nuclear program, which Israel fears is aimed at producing weapons. While Israeli officials insisted Thursday that there was no disagreement, the comments by Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz to Israeli journalists did not appear to line up completely either with the tone of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or the assessment of Mr. Barak." http://t.uani.com/IgJPa2      Nuclear Program & Sanctions  AP: "Iran's official news agency says Iran might ratify the additional protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The IRNA report Thursday quoted Iran's ambassador to Moscow, Reza Sajjadi. He said it could be part of a Russian framework under which Iran would stop expansion of its nuclear program if the West halts further sanctions. Sajjadi, who has no direct role in Iran's nuclear program, did not elaborate. The additional protocol allows U.N. inspectors to make snap visits to nuclear sites." http://t.uani.com/IdMlMq Reuters: "The Obama administration is unlikely to pull back from levying sanctions against Iran oil transactions based on a government report due on Friday, which is expected to show crude markets are sufficiently well-supplied to move forward with the penalties. The report, which the U.S. Energy Information Administration is required to produce every two months under the sanctions law aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions, could walk a fine line in assessing the state of markets, according to analysts. Oil markets have relaxed significantly since earlier this year, when prices reached post-2008 records as European and Asian oil customers cut imports from Iran... However, some analysts expect the report, which should be released at midday on Friday, to maintain a neutral tone, leaving President Barack Obama sufficient room to authorize a release of emergency oil stockpiles to help cool off gasoline prices, which have become a key issue in the presidential race." http://t.uani.com/I9XEmN Reuters: "An Iranian oil official denied major buyer China had cut imports of crude from the country in 2012, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Friday, after Chinese data showed they were a third lower in the first quarter than a year earlier. The customs data this week showed China - until recently Iran's top customer - halved its Iranian crude imports in March compared with the same month in 2011. Industry sources have said the reported fall, adding to Tehran's problems as it faces Western sanctions over its nuclear development programme, was due to disputes over contract terms. 'Iranian crude exports to Chinese refineries have not decreased at all in the current year,' the head of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Mohsen Ghamsari, told Mehr. 'On average we are exporting about 500,000 barrels of crude to China per day,' he added." http://t.uani.com/IxaECu Human Rights AFP: "Iran has ordered Ebrahim Yazdi, the elderly head of a banned opposition party and former foreign minister, to serve an eight-year jail term, a rights group said Friday, warning it could amount to a death sentence. The 80-year-old activist, who was prominent in Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, has been ordered to surrender, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement. 'On April 16, 2012, Evin prison authorities informed Yazdi through his bail bondsman that he had 20 days to surrender to serve the sentence, imposed on December 11, 2011 by a revolutionary court in Tehran on national security charges,' HRW said. 'An eight-year prison term may easily amount to a sentence to die in prison, given Yazdi's age and health,' said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director." http://t.uani.com/IdxDYR Foreign Affairs Pune Mirror: "The Special Branch of the city police deported 40-year-old Iranian national Hamid Kashkouli, who was pursuing his PhD programme, from the University of Pune (UoP) last month. He was found spying on city-based Israeli nationals and Israeli centres such as Chabad House in Koregaon Park, and the Rasta Peth Synagogue. It was also learnt that Kashkouli was on the payrolls of the Iranian intelligence. Kashkouli was produced before a city court by the police with the evidence of his illegal activities during his stay here following which an order of deportation was passed against him." http://t.uani.com/Jw5GYg Opinion & Analysis Seth G. Jones in FP: "Never say never. Some scholars and former policymakers dismiss the possibility of al Qaeda-Iranian cooperation. 'I think [there] is a war-fevered hysteria that is going on now,' protests Hillary Mann Leverett, a National Security Council aide during the Clinton and Bush administrations. 'A lot of this stuff is really flimsy.' On the surface, she seems right. Not only is Iran a fundamentalist Shiite regime while al Qaeda is violently Sunni, but the two groups also have different long-term goals and have occasionally clashed. Yet on the geopolitical chessboard, they share a common enemy: the United States. Iran has held several al Qaeda senior leaders since they were driven from Afghanistan in late 2001. Some have raised funds for the terrorist organization by leveraging wealthy Persian Gulf donors, while others have provided strategic and operational assistance to al Qaeda Central. Of particular importance are members of al Qaeda's former management council, which bin Laden established as a backup command-and-control node in Iran. They include Saif al-Adel, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, Abu Muhammad al-Masri, and Abu Hafs al-Mauritani -- all of whom apparently remain in Iran under various forms of house arrest, according to my interviews with government officials from Britain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. The details of al Qaeda's relationship with the Iranian government are hazy. Many of the operatives under house arrest have petitioned for release. In 2009 and 2010, Iran began to free some detainees and their family members, including members of bin Laden's family, while the management council remains in Iran under limited house arrest. Members are allowed to communicate with al Qaeda Central, fundraise, and help funnel foreign fighters through Iran, according to several senior U.S. government officials. Iran is likely holding al Qaeda leaders on its territory first as an act of defense. So long as Tehran has several leaders under its control, the terrorist group is unlikely to attack Iran. The strategy, however, might also have an offensive component if the United States or Israel were to target Iran's nuclear facilities. Tehran has long used proxies to pursue its foreign-policy interests, especially Hezbollah in Lebanon. And several of al Qaeda's leaders in Iran, such as Adel, the group's onetime security chief, have extensive operational experience that would be valuable in such a situation. Al Qaeda is likely making similar calculations about working with Iran. To be sure, some al Qaeda leaders revile the ayatollahs. In a 2004 letter, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late al Qaeda chief in Iraq, called Shiites 'the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion.' In a sign of Churchillesque pragmatism, though, Zawahiri publicly chastised Zarqawi, writing that the Shiites were not the primary enemy -- at least not for the moment. It was crucial, he explained, to understand that success hinged on support from the Muslim masses in Iraq. 'In the absence of this popular support,' argued Zawahiri, 'the Islamic mujahid movement would be crushed in the shadows.' For al Qaeda, Iran is a refuge. The United States has targeted al Qaeda in Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and other countries, but it has limited operational reach inside the Islamic Republic. What's more, Iran borders the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, making it centrally located for most al Qaeda affiliates. With the management council under limited house arrest, Iran and al Qaeda's relationship remains at arm's length. But that could change if Washington and Tehran finally come to blows. Should the United States or Israel decide to attack Iranian nuclear facilities or tensions otherwise escalate, Iran and al Qaeda could find that they share a common interest in bloodying America's nose." http://t.uani.com/JM452G Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.