Top Stories WSJ: "An individual identifying himself as a 21-year-old software engineering student in Iran has claimed responsibility for the recent computer attack of a U.S. security company that could have lured Iranian users to fake versions of major websites and compromised their online communications. In a series of rambling and defiant messages posted on website Pastebin.com, the individual, who calls himself 'comodohacker,' described in detail how he managed the hack, including some of the coding he used. He wrote that he was working alone, rather than as an employee of the Iranian government. 'I'm a single hacker with the experience of 1000 hackers,' he boasted in one post. 'I'm a single programmer with the experience of 1000 programmers.' Internet security experts were cautious about believing everything the individual wrote, but they said the details of the hack appeared legitimate. 'The person/people behind the post do seem to have had access to Comodo's internal systems,' wrote Mikko Hypponen, head of research at Helsinki, Finland-based Internet security firm F-Secure. 'Whether the rest of their story is true or not, we don't know.' Robert Graham, the head of Internet security company Errata Security, wrote, 'I can verify that the general details are correct.' The individual claiming responsibility for the hack lashed out at media coverage of the computer virus, called Stuxnet, that appeared to hinder Iran's nuclear program, suggesting his hack of the Jersey City, N.J. security company, called Comodo Group Inc., was a form of revenge." http://t.uani.com/e2IchZ Radio Farda: "A senior U.S. State Department official says possible changes in the Iranian regime remain a question that must be decided by the Iranian people. Robert Einhorn, the State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, says Washington is not now directing its efforts toward changing the regime that governs Iran. 'We may not like this regime in Tehran -- in fact, we don't like this regime in Tehran -- but we believe that this regime will be changed when Iranian people decide it needs to be changed, and by the Iranian people,' Einhorn says. Einhorn says U.S. policy is aimed at changing Iran's behavior concerning its nuclear activities, its human rights record, and what he describes as Iranian support for terrorist groups." http://t.uani.com/erGXes UPI: "Iran leads the way in the 'worrying upsurge' in the number of executions in the Middle East and Asia, Amnesty International claims. The United Nations last week voted to appoint a special human rights envoy to monitor the situation in Iran. Amnesty International said Iran carried out 252 executions in 2010, compared with 18 in Libya. 'Iran, Libya and Yemen experienced a worrying upsurge in executions ... and there are fears of mass executions in Libya as the (current) conflict there deepens,' the watchdog group added." http://t.uani.com/fTduKF
Nuclear Program & Sanctions JPost: "Contrary to a recent report, the investigations into the 1992 and 1994 bombings of the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires have not been stopped, a lawyer charged with handling the court case on behalf of the government said Sunday. Prosecutor Alberto Nisman denied a report that appeared in a local newspaper last week alleging that Argentina had been offered, and perhaps accepted, a deal to 'forget' the attacks that killed 116 people and wounded hundreds. 'It is absolutely preposterous, absurd,' Nisman told the Prensa Judia, a local Jewish newspaper. 'It's been a long time since I've read such nonsense.' The article run by the Prefil tabloid alleged that Tehran had offered Argentina improved financial ties if it dropped the investigations into the bombings, which are believed to have been carried out by Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards and which might directly implicate senior Iranian diplomats." http://t.uani.com/ijz0U6 Foreign Affairs Radio Farda: "'Limited' protests have taken place in a few cities in Syria, while reports indicate that Israel has incited Syrians to take to the streets by sending them text messages and also by using the Internet. That's according to a short report by Iran's official news agency, IRNA, which fails to mention the deaths in Syria or the chants for freedom and against corruption. In reality, what has been very 'limited' is the coverage Iranian news agencies have given to the unrest that has rocked Syria in recent days. Most agencies have either largely ignored the protests or posted reports that suggest foreign countries have a hand in the protests in Iran's main ally in the region. The protests in Syria have put Tehran in a difficult position, which would seem to be one of the major reasons for the silence. Iranian media have been giving ample coverage to the Arab revolts and protests -- except for Syria. Iranian officials, who have been describing the uprisings as an Islamic awakening and claimed that protesters have been inspired by Iran's 1979 revolution, must now employ different rhetoric to explain the events in Syria." http://t.uani.com/e48Yyp Reuters: "A Kuwaiti criminal court has sentenced three people to death for being part of an alleged Iranian spy ring in the Gulf Arab state, Dubai-based Al Arabiya television said on Tuesday. The station did not give further details on a case that has strained relations between Kuwait and Tehran. Kuwait, which banned media coverage of the case, has said only that several people were detained in an unspecified security probe. Kuwaiti media said in May 2010 authorities had detained a number of people -- Kuwaitis and foreigners -- suspected of spying for Iran. The independent al-Qabas daily said they were accused of gathering information on Kuwaiti and U.S. military sites for Iran's Revolutionary Guard." http://t.uani.com/ejACVU Opinion & Analysis Michael Oren in WSJ: "America and its allies, empowered by the United Nations and the Arab League, are interceding militarily in Libya. But would that action have been delayed or even precluded if Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had access to nuclear weapons? No doubt Gadhafi is asking himself that same question. Gadhafi unilaterally forfeited his nuclear weapons program by 2004, turning over uranium-enriching centrifuges and warhead designs. A dictator like him-capable of ordering the murders of 259 civilians aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and countless others in many countries including his own-would not easily concede the ultimate weapon. Gadhafi did so because he believed he was less secure with the bomb than he would be after relinquishing it. He feared that the U.S., which had recently invaded Iraq, would deal with him much as it had Saddam Hussein. A similar fear, many intelligence experts in the U.S. and elsewhere believe, impelled the Iranian regime to suspend its own nuclear weapons program in 2003. According to these analysts, the program resumed only when the threat of military intervention receded. It continues to make steady progress today. The Iranian regime is the pre- eminent sponsor of terror in the world, a danger to pro-Western states, and the enemy of its own people who strive for democracy. It poses all of these hazards without nuclear weapons. Imagine the catastrophes it could inflict with them... The efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons have been obscured by the dramatic images emanating from the region, but the upheaval makes that campaign all the more critical. While cynically shooting its own dissidents, the Iranian regime is calling for the overthrow of other Middle Eastern governments and exploiting the disorder to extend its influence... The critical question then becomes: Does anybody in Tehran believe that all options are truly on the table today? Based on Iran's brazen pronouncements, the answer appears to be no. And while the allied intercession in Libya may send a message of determination to Iran, it might also stoke the Iranian regime's desire to become a nuclear power and so avoid Gadhafi's fate. For that reason it is especially vital now to substantiate the 'all options' policy. Now is the moment to dissuade the Iranian regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon that might deter any Libya-like intervention or provide the ayatollahs with a doomsday option. If Gadhafi had not surrendered his centrifuges in 2004 and he were now surrounded in his bunker with nothing left but a button, would he push it?" http://t.uani.com/fn1AeX Bertil Lintner in Asia Times: "If Mehdi Kamyabi Pour, press officer at Iran's embassy in Bangkok, is to be believed, accusations that his country is developing nuclear weapons are 'absolutely unfounded'. Nuclear weapons, he recently asserted, have no place in Iran's defense doctrine and his country 'has strongly condemned the use of such inhumane weapons'. Pour's statement appeared in the March 13 edition of the Bangkok Post in response to an article the daily newspaper published about Iran's attempts to obtain nuclear-related material and devices in Asia and its extensive shipping networks in the region. Military analysts claim East Asia is becoming Iran's main source of such items and often the origin of these nuclear-related goods is China... The easiest way to source such materials has always been to use a middleman in a third country, which is then declared as the end user of items actually destined for Iran. Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was previously the re-export hub for these clandestine activities, and for years Iran imported more goods through Dubai than its own ports. In January 2005, a Tehran Chamber of Commerce official disclosed that there were more than 4,650 Iranian companies in Dubai and that Iranian interests contributed 45% of fixed investments and 10% of all investment in the sprawling Jebel Ali Free Zone near Dubai City... Because the US in particular now has better cooperation from the UAE, Iran is increasingly turning to countries and territories like China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia to obtain what it needs to keep its contested nuclear industry running. In May last year, Chen Yi-lan, alias Kevin Chen, a 40-year old Taiwanese passport holder, pleaded guilty in a court in Miami to charges of 'conspiring to illegally export dual-use commodities to Iran'. He had been apprehended on the Pacific island of Guam, a US territory, while arranging a roundabout shipment of embargoed goods to Iran via Hong Kong and Taiwan." http://t.uani.com/gma8Xc |
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