As pressure mounts on the Biden administration to deny visa for Iran’s president to attend the UN Assembly, the Senate is preparing a bill to bar all officials tied to the Supreme Leader.
Although the Biden administration says it is "obligated" to allow the hardline president Ebrahim Raisi into the country to attend the United Nations' General Assembly, Republican Senator Ted Cruz is circulating a bill that would alter the law to facilitate a visa ban on all Iranian officials sanctioned for their ties to Ali Khamenei, the country's ruler, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Wednesday.
The proposed bill is likely to attract bipartisan support due to the failure of an earlier pressure campaign over the Biden administration’s insistence on its obligation under US law to issue a visa. A bipartisan group of 52 US representatives wrote a letter to the White House earlier this month calling on President Joe Biden to deny "entry visas" for Raisi and his delegation.
However, Cruz’s proposed bill -- which may be cited as the "Strengthening Entry Visa Enforcement and Restrictions Act of 2022" or the "SEVER Act of 2022" -- would formalize efforts in Congress to pressure the administration into barring Raisi due to Tehran's active plots to assassinate US officials such as former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton.
"The United States is absolutely able to deny entry to anyone who threatens our national security," Cruz told the Washington Free Beacon. "Raisi is a mass-murdering terrorist who was handpicked by the ayatollah -- and he's coming to the United States while there are Iranian agents trying to murder former American officials and dissidents on American soil."
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned ten individuals and two companies, Najee Technology and Afkar System, over their roles in conducting malicious cyber acts including ransomware activity, the Treasury said in a press release.The Treasury Department had also sanctioned Iran’s intelligence ministry for “cyber operations” against the US and its allies on Friday.
“We will continue to take coordination action with our global partners to combat and deter ransomware threats, including those associated with the IRGC,” said Brian E. Nelson, under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.
The United States and its European allies have intensified warnings over the activitiesof hackers and cyber-espionage threat actors believed to be sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran following reported Iranian cyber operations against Albania, a NATO member.
The Western warnings and US sanctions come as 18-month-long negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran have hit a snag, with Tehran hardening its position.
Tirana cut diplomatic ties with Tehran due to a cyberattack in July that temporarily disrupted government websites and services.
The US Treasury Department on September 9 sanctioned Iran’s intelligence ministry for “cyber operations” against the US and its allies, a day after White House and NATO allies condemned the July attack which happened around the time of a conference of the exiled Iranian Albania-based opposition group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK).
In early August, cybersecurity firm Mandiant expressed “moderate confidence” the attackers were acting in support of Tehran’s efforts to disrupt the MEK conference, which had to be cancelled as well due to a terror threat.
Microsoft also announced Monday that it has been tracking hacking activities by an Iran-linked group, known as DEV-0343, that targeted US and Israeli defense and other key companies. ““DEV-0343 continues to evolve their techniques to refine its attacks,” the report said.
Iran’s foreign ministry Thursday rejected accusations about the alleged cyberattack. Relations between Tehran and Tirana have been tense since 2014, when Albania accepted some 3,000 members of the MEK.
Albania’s interior ministry on Saturday accused Tehran of another attack on its government computer systems on Friday that forced Tirana to temporarily take its Total Information Management System (TIMS) offline. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said on Twitter the cyberattack was carried out by the “same aggressors” behind the July hack.
Hackers and cyber spies allegedly working for Iran have also been accused of targeting those specializing in Middle Eastern affairs or nuclear security including academics, policymakers, diplomats, journalists, as well as human rights activists who focus on Iran.
These threat actors have improved and polished their technics over the years. According to a Wednesday report by Security firm Proofpoint in mid-2022, the Iran-aligned threat actor known as TA453 deployed a new social engineering impersonation technique informally called ‘Multi-Persona Impersonation’ (MPI) by Proofpoint.
MPIis based on the psychology principle of social proof and involves using at least two personas on a single email thread to convince phishing targets of the legitimacy of the threat actor’s emails.
According to Proofpoint researchers, in a standard TA453 campaign, the threat actor masquerades as an individual such as a journalist working to collaborate with the intended target. TA453 has targeted academics, policymakers, diplomats, journalists, and human rights workers, they said.
Mohammad-Mehdi Rahimi, head of Raisi’s public relations office on Tuesday said the president has no account on Twitter. The announcement has left many wondering about the identity of those behind the account thought to be the president's official account, as it introduces itself. The account has been tweeting in his name since before he won the controversial presidential elections of June 2021.
According to Twitter the account was created in March 2021. It has been in regular use since May 26, 2021, more than 3 weeks before the election, and has over 173K followers including Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and the official news agency IRNA. The last tweet from the account which posted a quote from the president was posted on August 12th.
Most official news agencies and pro-Raisi news websites retweeted the tweets from @raisi.com account in Raisi's name throughout this time but the president’s media team never denied their authenticity until now.
“Denial of authenticity of Raisi's Twitter is one of the greatest blunders of the president’s media team … The question arises, if the account belongs to him, how come nobody is taking responsibility for it. Has something been said there that doesn’t suit the purposes of Raisi's team?” reformist Rouydad24 asked Wednesday.
The second scenario is that there is a Twitter account in Raisi's name that nearly all ministers, vice presidents, as well as the official government and cabinet accounts follow, retweet, and quote but nobody knows who it belongs to, Rouydad24 added.
“This is even a bigger blunder. One should ask not only the administration’s media team, but also security and intelligence bodies, how such a blunder could happen without anyone noticing?How is it that a fake Twitter account was publishing the Iranian government and president’s official stances, and no one investigated the matter for once?” Rouydad24 asked.
The semi-official Iranian Students News Agency, ISNA, was the first to report on June 1, 2021 that Raisi had officially joined Twitter. ISNA provided a link to the account.
Many of the earlier tweets posted on the account were written in first person voice and expressed then-Chief Justice and presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi’s views on domestic and foreign policies, including accusations against his predecessor’s government and his election rivals.
“I have been making calls and consultations to make the elections more competitive and inclusive, which you and [the disqualified candidates] themselves may not know about, since yesterday evening when I found out about the vetting results,” the very first tweet made from the account said.
The tweet referred to the controversial disqualification of three of Raisi’s main rivals -- former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri – by the election watchdog, the Guardian Council.
Later tweets, after Raisi took office, often described his administration's approach to US sanctions, negotiations to restore the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers (JCPOA), selling oil, and regional and international matters. These tweets were regularly quoted by both domestic and foreign media.
Instagram is the only major social media platform not blocked in the country where other platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Telegram cannot be accessed without the use of anti-filtering software and VPNs (virtual private networks).
According to the prosecutors, the suspects targeted hundreds of victims in the US and other countries, encrypting and stealing data from victims’ networks and threatening to release it unless exorbitant ransom payments were made. In some cases, the victims made those payments.
A senior Justice Department official said that the hackers are not believed to have been working on behalf of the Iranian government but instead for their own financial gain, and some of the victims were even in Iran.
The case was filed in federal court in New Jersey, where a municipality in Union County was hacked last year. One of the victims was a domestic violence shelter in Pennsylvania, which – according to the indictment -- was extorted out of $13,000 to recover its hacked data.
In the latest actions as part of the US government’s response to the malicious cyber activities by Iranian actors, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also sanctioned ten individuals and two entities Wednesday for their roles in malicious cyber acts, including ransomware activity.
The OFAC said all the individuals and entities designated Wednesday are affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC).
Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said, “We will continue to take coordination action with our global partners to combat and deter ransomware threats, including those associated with the IRGC.”
Khabar Online website has quoted reformist commentator Abbas Abdi on Wednesday as saying, "I have been informed by reliable sources that the leader has vested Rasi with the responsibility of deciding on the nuclear issue."
In the absence of Khamenei from the public scene for about two weeks, the handover gives rise to speculations whether the leader delegated part of his authority because of a medical emergency, or he simply wanted to shift the responsibility for a key decision to Raisi so that he could remain in a position to criticize any possible deal, if things do not work well.
Abdi noted that although it has been said over and over in Iran that accepting or rejecting a nuclear deal can be done only by the Supreme Leader, it is now evident that Raisi is in charge of the nuclear deal and whether he signs an agreement or rejects it, he will be responsible for it.
The Iranian government has not denied social media reports about Khamenei's illness. Meanwhile, the leader's office has cancelled two scheduled meetings with the Assembly of Experts members and Bassij militia during the past days.
In another development, a picture released by the official news agency IRNA last week about Khamenei's meeting with athletes, turned out to be at last three years old and the agency pulled the story. All this may indicate that Khamenei is not physically in a good position for public appearances.
Khamenei's previous absences ended with his powerful re-emergence to deny the report and discredit foreign media who went out of their way to say he was dead. That kind of a publicity stunt cannot be ruled out before more solid evidence emerges about his condition.
In still another development, former lawmaker Ahmad Mazani, a reformist figure, said in an interview with conservative Nameh News that Raisi and Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf should be held accountable for the consequences of any delay in reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA. Like Abdi, Mazani also said, "The news that has reached us says that the Supreme Leader has delegated the responsibility for the revival of the JCPOA to President Raisi as the chairman of the Supreme Council of National Security."
Nonetheless, Abdi noted that still anyone who thinks Khamenei does not have the final say on the nuclear case, has no proper understanding of the status of the Supreme Leader and the significance of a nuclear deal for the Islamic Republic.
Abdi said, this explains why and how the Iranian parliament approved the JCPOA in 2015 within 20 minutes and the Guardian Council uncharacteristically did not find any fault in the decision made by the Majles.
In another development, the Jomhouri Eslami [Islamic Republic] newspaper, a daily founded by Khamenei, wrote in its editorial on Wednesday that "The key to lift the sanctions on Iran is in the hands of the Raisi Administration." The daily further called on the government to "end this story."
The editorial went on, "Now the people expect the Iranian government to solve this problem in this suitable situation and conclude several years of negotiations from a position of power."