On July 27, a cyberattack struck Iran's three largest steel-producing companies. Khuzestan Steel Company, a state-owned firm, said that it had stopped production because of the hack. Gonjeshke Darande, a hacking group, said that it conducted the cyberattack in retaliation for the "aggression of the Islamic Republic" and noted the companies' ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). According to video released by the group, the cyberattack caused a fire at a Khuzestan Steel factory; however, Khuzestan Steel's CEO said that no damage had occurred that would impact the company's ability to supply its customers. The hackers also appeared to target mills in Bandar Abbas and Mobarakeh.
News Briefs
June 26, 2022
In March, senior military officers from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States held a meeting in the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh to discuss potential cooperation to defend against the threat of drones and missiles from Iran. Attendees included Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi, Chief of Staff of the Saudi Armed Forces General Fayyadh bin Hamed Al Ruwaili, and General Frank McKenzie, who headed U.S. Central Command at the time, as well as Lieutenant General Salem Bin Hamad Al-Nabit, who oversees the Qatari Armed Forces.
-- The Wall Street Journal
June 26, 2022
On June 26, Iran's state media announced that the country launched a solid-fueled Zuljanah space launch vehicle (SLV). Satellite imagery indicated that Iran had been preparing a launch at Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Semnan Province. The Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) said that the Zuljanah is capable of carrying a 220-kilogram satellite into low-earth orbit. The United States criticized the Iranian launch.
-- Associated Press
June 25, 2022
On June 24, Iran began adding concrete to the walls of the second unit of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), visited the plant and said that construction on the second and third units of the BNPP had fallen 28 months behind schedule. The two units combined have a planned capacity of 2,100 megawatts.
-- Tasnim News Agency
June 23, 2022
On June 23, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that it was replacing Hossein Taeb, the head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization for the last 12 years, with General Mohammad Kazemi. Taeb will now serve as an advisor to Major General Hossein Salami, the commander of the IRGC. The reshuffle follows the suspicious deaths of a number of IRGC members in recent weeks.
-- Agence France-Presse
June 20, 2022
On June 20, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran is preparing to enrich uranium using the second of two advanced IR-6 centrifuge cascades at the underground Fordow facility. This second cascade is the first to feature modified sub-headers that enable it to easily pivot between different levels of uranium enrichment. Iran has not told the IAEA the level at which the new cascade would enrich uranium but had given previous estimates of 5 to 20 percent purity.
-- Reuters
June 16, 2022
On June 16, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned several Iranian petrochemical firms and China- and United Arab Emirates-based front companies. The sanctioned entities were connected to an Iranian state-owned enterprise and Triliance, a Hong Kong-based company which the United States had already blacklisted for its transactions with Iran. The Treasury Department also sanctioned Chinese national Jeff Gao and Indian national Mohammad Shaheed Ruknooddin Bhore, alleged brokers for Triliance.
-- Agence France-Presse
June 13, 2022
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued a statement on June 12 that IRGC Aerospace Force member Ali Kamani died in a "driving accident" while on duty in the Iranian city of Khomein. The following day, Fars News Agency, a news service with ties to the IRGC, announced that Mohammad Abdous, an aerospace worker employed by the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL), had died during a mission in Semnan Province on June 12. Iran's state media described the deaths as "martyrdoms," suggesting that Abdous and Kamani had been killed.
-- Al Jazeera
June 13, 2022
According to an unnamed Iranian official, Iran has concluded that Israel killed two Iranian scientists via poisoning: Ayoub Entezari, an aeronautical engineer at Ghadir Industrial Turbines Company, on May 31 and Kamran Aghamolaei, a geologist, on June 2. Entezari earned a doctorate in aeronautics and reportedly worked on government projects involving airplane turbines and missiles. Israeli news agencies linked Aghamolaei, who studied for a doctorate in geology at Tarbiat Modares University, to the Natanz nuclear facility, but Iranian sources denied that he had any connection to Iran's government.
-- The New York Times
June 10, 2022
On June 8, the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) censured Iran because the country has not offered a credible explanation for the presence of nuclear material at three sites that Iran had failed to declare to the IAEA. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the IAEA, announced a day later that Iran had begun to remove 27 cameras that the IAEA uses to monitor nuclear sites throughout the country, including the Arak heavy water reactor, the Natanz enrichment facility, and other locations in Isfahan and Tehran; Iran had already indicated on June 8 that it shut down two IAEA monitoring devices in Natanz. Grossi said that, after the anticipated removals, about 40 IAEA cameras would remain active in Iran. On June 9, the Agency also reported that Iran intended to add two more cascades of advanced IR-6 centrifuges at Natanz, following the in-progress installation of a previously planned IR-6 cascade there.
-- Associated Press