October 626
My 328th post on The War
This post is part of a series of posts related to the new front in Israel’s War, Iran:
“October 623” described the missile attacks coming from Iran on Israel, casualties, the nature of the missiles and how Israel is dealing with them;
“October 624” went into the early days of the IDF’s attack on Iran and its initial targets - military leadership, nuclear knowhow, missile launchers; and
“October 625” delved into making of an atomic bomb, the nuclear enrichment facilities built by Iran, the associated necessary technologies, the related targets in Iran, the progress the IDF has made in neutralizing those targets, the initial hours of the IDF attack and then the state of the IDF’s progress on eliminating the ballistic missiles, launchers and related systems.
Today, I intend to continue describing the operations of the IDF in Iran focusing on the:
cyber attack front,
military sites and
government offices/facilities
But before starting I think I owe you, my readers, an apology. I went and read what I wrote yesterday realizing many grammatical errors. We are a bit sleep deprived here in Israel so I provide this as my excuse. In fact, there is a lot of humor being displayed across the country as we deal with situation. One meme running around goes like:
!!עם ישראל חי, אבל אני מת לישון
In English this translates as “The Jewish People live, but I am dying for some sleep”.
Today’s Image - Israeli Satire Video
While we are on the subject of humor, you might also enjoy taking a look at this video that is circulating. To truly appreciate it you need to watch the TV Series Tehran produced in Israel but distributed over Apple TV+:
A Short Digression - Putting Things in Perspective
But, first let me digress. I am not one you would call a true believer. By that I mean I do not think that there is an omnipresent G-d who controls or influences events at a daily, personal level. But I do find this comparison interesting and compelling… From the story of Exodus we find that G-d hardened Pharoah’s heart preventing him from heeding Moses’ warning and refusing to release the Hebrews, our ancient ancestors, from slavery. Ultimately, Pharoah did yield but then changed his mind to pursue the departing Hebrews. The sages say that it was through this process that the Pharoah and his entire army ultimately met their demise by drowning in the Red Sea. As I think of hardening hearts we can only look at the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who informs President Trump that his regime will never surrender and never negotiate away his nuclear enrichment program. So rather than reach a reasonable settlement he intends to take his nation and regime to “drown in the Red Sea”. Actually, it is widely believed that Khamenei is no longer running the Supreme Council and the regime, but has yielded control to the surviving leaders of the Revolutionary Council. Like Hamas they have no interest in what is in the best interests of their people, but instead would gladly sacrifice them to achieve their fanatical, apocalyptic aims.
Cyberattacks on Iran
In addition to the IDF planned and executed attack on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure, there is also a set of attacks taking place in the cyber sphere. The first publicized attack took place on Tuesday when a group linked to Israel successfully penetrated the operations of Bank Sepah, the first bank established in Iran. This attack penetrated the Bank’s online services, its ATM operations and other payments systems like those at gas stations. While Iran’s Central Bank denied any issues at its members banks, there were widespread reports of individuals unable to access their accounts, unable to pump gas at nearby filling stations and inability to access accounts online. In addition customers reported the inability to use their credit cards. Both the credit card issuing companies and Bank Sepah are known to have direct links to Iran’s military. Military pensions are distributed through this bank. The group that took credit for this cyber attack is known as Predatory Sparrow. There they claim that the Bank is an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp. While there in no overt link to the IDF or Israel, this cyber group has been known previously to have its base of operations in Israel. Bank Sepah was under imposed sanctions by the USA. According to this follow on report the disruption in payment services has been vast and impacted many different types of financial transactions. Most Bank Sepah branches closed on Tuesday and remain closed, even now.
Then yesterday on the Predatory Sparrow twitter account the group announced that they had successfully hacked into Iran’s largest crypto currency exchange, Nobitex, which is apparently used to funds Iran’s terror activities abroad. According to Predatory Sparrow, those working at the exchange serve in the Iranian Army. In this report it is claimed that the same group, Predatory Sparrow, has taken credit for the crash of Nobitex, stealing $90M in the process. The group, yesterday, threatened to release the source code for the Nobitex Exchange which would let most any proficient software developer to “steal” money from the virtual exchange. Today they published the code here.
I do not believe that Predatory Sparrow is linked anyway to the IDF, but is just a group of independent hackers. I am sure that the IDF cyber units are very active penetrating Iran’s infrastructure but we will only learn details well after this operations comes to an end. Meanwhile, it is clear that much of the internet inside Iran is down. I often go to this web site which is the official English version of the Iranian Governments News web site. It has been inaccessible for the past 48 hours.
Then late yesterday someone hacked into the Iranian State TV network to displace the broadcast displaying the emblem linked to what the government is calling this major military operation being waged against Operation Rising Lion. This followed the actual missile attack on the state TV network on Tuesday which you can view here. As best can be determine, a hacker somehow interceded through a live satellite broadcast of the Iranian national TV network to show images, then text informing the Iranian public that it was time to rise up and topple their fanatical, suicidal regime. You can see the portion of the broadcast on the video at this web page.
IDF Attacks on Iranian Military Infrastructure
I have previously described how the IDF is going after the Iranian Ballistic Missiles, launchers, related factories, chemical plants for fabricating the explosives and for fabricating the propellent and oxidant. But there are many other military sites coming under attack in order to curtail the Iranian ability to manufacture arms, either for their own use or for those of their proxies like Hezbollah.
BUT, before describing just what kind of other targets are being eliminated I thought I should update you on the ballistic missiles. As of today the IDF believes that they have eliminated 50% of all the ballistic missile launchers in the Iranian arsenal. And in last night’s barrage of 30 missiles (which sent us to the bomb shelter twice) the IDF believes that there is evidence that Iran struck Israel with a MIRV, Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle. Right now the only known countries with this technology are the nuclear superpowers - USA, Russia, UK, France and China. India and Pakistan are presumed developing this technology but it has not proven the capabilities yet. So, if this is true it is a worrying development. Most MIRVs are used in the context of nuclear bomb delivery, not conventional warheads.
Years ago Hezbollah found an IDF discarded, Israeli built and designed Spike surface to surface missile that can be used to penetrate the armor of land based transports like a tank. They gave it to Iran who then meticulously duplicated its design to produce its own line of Surface to Surface missiles called Almas. Ironically, the IDF found many of these, unused, during its search and destroy missions in Souther Lebanon after it recent ground invasion there. Hezbollah used their arsenal of these anti-tank missiles while firing across the border at northern Israeli communities throughout the last months of 2023 and into 2024. Also, one was fired by Hezbollah and disabled an Israeli tank during that offensive. Well yesterday the IAF fired missiles and destroyed the factories that build and assembled those Almas missiles.
Starting about Monday or Tuesday of this week, after its focus was on the Iranian nuclear program and ballistic missiles, the IDF has now also started targeting conventional military bases, barracks, weapons manufacturing facilities and the plants which produce the materials needed for these weapons. While I am sure that the IDF has a clear plan and priority list of these targets they certainly aren’t publishing it. So I will just go through a few examples so you get an idea of just what is happening:
IDF hits the Shahid Meisami Chemical Weapons Complex in Karaj,
That’s right the Islamic Republic has active chemical and biological weapons research operations with unknown capabilities.
IDF destroyed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC Headquarters,
IDF strikes Iranian Defense Ministry Headquarters in Tehran,
IDF eliminates Arak Nuclear Reactor,
This one requires an explanation. Some people have asked me how do you know that Iran was really pursuing the deployment of an atomic weapon. I will comment more on that in a future post. BUT, the Arak Reactor’s purpose is to produce weapons grade plutonium. There is absolutely no other purpose for such a reactor. There is no peaceful purpose. Why would a country invest in such a thing if did not intend to deploy such a nefarious weapon?
IDF hits 20 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp - Quds Force Bases,
IRGC vehicle convoy transporting missile and air defense system hit,
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Iran is a large country from an Israeli point of view. It has distributed its nuclear and military arsenal across the entire country. The IDF continues to focus on the nuclear and ballistic missile infrastructure, but is clearly working to set back the other parts of the IRGC military machine back many years.
Iran’s Government Infrastructure
The Islamic Republic created its own internal police called the Basij. It is the rather undisciplined force responsible for enforcing the Islamic laws on the population. When you hear about an Iranian woman defying the regime by taking off her Hijab, then getting arrested, raped, tortured and then killed, you know who is responsible. It, together with the ordinary police force make up the internal security forces. While it is not a focus of the IDF efforts, both have gotten some attention.
Reports coming from inside Iran verified that the IDF struck the headquarters of the Law Enforcement Force of the Islamic Republic.
It also appears that, but unverified, that one of the IDF strikes on the Internal Security facilities in Tehran resulted in destroying part of a prison. Afterwards, this video shows many of the prisoners escaping.
These government sites have also been hit hard by the IDF: Iranian Ministry of Defense, Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (something like DARPA), Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, Iranian Law Enforcement Command, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting and IRGC Basij Headquarters in Isfahan.