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Image from hacked Voice of America website |
In Tehran, jihadists calling themselves "Cyber-Hezbollah" organized a conference called "Clicks of Resistance" on the occasion of the Holy Defense Week, marking the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
And the rest of the world is paying attention, as a main speaker, Hassan Abbasi of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard warned, "In hyperspace one can destroy the laws that have been created by the security apparatus of the enemy, and one can attack their strategies."
He said the Internet should be looked at as a battlefield.
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According to the Iranian news website The Cultural Website of Martyrdom and Sacrifice, the Cyber-Hezbollah meeting was held "to glorify the cyber activists working for the dissemination of the culture of martyrdom and jihad in the cyberspace."
Fars News Agency reported that the aim of the conference was to recognize the efforts of the Muslim cyber hackers operating in cyberspace who are dedicated to jihad against the United States and Israel.
The main lecture of the conference was given by Abbasi, who is considered one of the major theoreticians of the radical wing of the Iranian government. Abbasi warned about probes on Iranian websites by the U.S. National Security Agency.
Addressing the conference, which consisted mainly of college-age students who use the Internet, Abbasi warned that any information they post on a blog, website or social media site "is monitored by Iran's enemies, who wage a war against Muslim society and the religion of Islam."
Abbasi also claimed that it was the NSA that actually controls the Internet.
Further, he warned that the U.S. was looking for a reason to instigate a war to divert attention from its own internal problems. Abbasi went on to say that Cyber-Hezbollah activists must act against attacks made on Iran by enemies by spreading the message of the Muslim world in cyberspace.
Iran's online presence, Abbasi said, should be looked at as a battlefield, and online cyber warfare should be used against the enemy. Abbasi suggests that cyber-jihadists falsify their identification on the Internet by obscuring their IP addresses.
He argued: "This time, the U.S. will conduct an attack against itself in hyperspace, following the example of September 11," suggesting the U.S. was behind the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for going to war against Islam.
The conference was a bellwether for a general movement by Tehran to recruit jihadists and turn them into cyber warriors.
Gholam-Reza Jalali, the head of the Iran's Passive Resistance Organization, announced the establishment of the "Cyber War Headquarters of the Islamic Republic" to act against those Tehran feels are a threat.
Jalali called on "good-intentioned, revolutionary" hackers to help advance the objectives of the Islamic republic. Jalali also warned that the Iranian authorities monitor the activities of hackers seeking to harm Iran's citizens and will take action against them.
Jalali has said that the establishment of cyber commands in the U.S. and Germany clearly has proven that the world is focused on the cyber war. Jalali went on to state that the Stuxnet computer worm, which attacked Iran's nuclear development program, brought about an awareness of the effectiveness of cyber warfare. The incident caused an increased coordination and cooperation in cyber warfare between Iran's various security and intelligence apparatuses, including the Passive Resistance Organization and the Ministry of Intelligence. Various agencies involved in internal security and the judiciary have become involved in cyber warfare training.
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