Arash Aramesh

In an “exclusive” report, Kayhan claims that the U.S. government and the CIA outlined a plan in 2006 to destabilize Iran. According to Kayhan, the Bush administration appropriated $400 million for this plan in order to instigate a new kind of war against Iran; this time in the form of an internet campaign targeting various aspects of the Iranian society.

Kayhan, Iran’s largest state owned newspaper, reported March 15 that, “…with the help and kindness of the almighty, the guardians of the revolution [the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps] detected and destroyed a network of cyber spies.” According to Kayhan, 30 individuals involved in spying for the CIA and other foreign intelligence services were arrested in Iran last week by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

According to Kayhan, this cyber network has tried to bring an atmosphere of insecurity to Iran. This network aimed at creating anxiety for the Iranian people in order to implement its political tactics, resulting in an unstable society with a shaky and uncertain public.

Kayhan adds, “During last summer’s riots, an individual using ‘Raha’ as his internet ID distributed a plan on the internet that became known as the plan of ‘Green Silence.’ One of the members of this cyber war network, who holds a Master’s degree in electrical engineering and was one of the contractors of the Ministry of Energy, came up with public and private plans to disrupt Iran’s electricity distribution network, causing major damage to the network and thus causing large riots.” Kayhan did not explain how disrupting the supply of electricity in Iran was going to cause riots.

Kayhan praises the “IRGC’s dominance of the cyber space” and claims that the IRGC is aware of the latest tricks of Western intelligence services and knows very well how to counter them.

According to Kayhan, one of the several tasks of this cyber network was to “fight censorship” and provide internet users with anti-filtering proxies. According to the evidence provided to Kayhan, this network produced “tens of millions” of anti-filtering software in one year, a staggering number of software allegedly produced by a network of thirty or so individuals.

This network also focused on hacking government websites such as Sepahnews, IRGC’s website, Basijnews, the Basij’s website, and sites belonging to high-ranking Iranian officials, such as Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the chairman of the Assembly of Experts. Allegedly, these hackers were also after hacking the personal website of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with little success.

This network also is accused of trying to recruit Iranian political activists and journalists as spies by promising them U.S. visas. According to Kayhan, most recruits would be sent to Turkey and then to the US. Some of these recruits, however, never made it out of Turkey and remained there.

Kayhan asserts, “A few individuals in charge of these CIA spy networks have been identified. These individuals are Babak Khorramdin, Reza, David, and Kamran. Babak Khorramdin is the leader of the group with links to Radio Farda.” Radio Farda is an Iranian radio network funded by the U.S. Department of State that operates in Prague.

In the weeks following the disputed June 12 election, the IRGC beefed up its efforts to identify and arrest those involved in what it called “cyber crimes.” Gerdab, an IRGC website dedicated to fight “soft wars” and cyber crime, was created and a number of arrests were made. This is the first time that the IRGC claims it has destroyed a “network of CIA spies” inside the country. It is unclear how these individuals are going to be placed on trial given that Iran’s criminal laws lack adequate legislation about cyber crimes and internet regulations.