The Justice Department charged two computer hackers who are accused of targeting hundreds of websites worldwide to deface them with pro-Iranian messaging, in part as retaliation for the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in January.
Behzad Mohammadzadeh, a 19-year-old Iranian national who goes by “Mrb3hz4d” online, and Marwan Abusrour, a 25-years-old stateless national of the Palestinian Authority who uses “Mrwn007” as his name online, were charged on Tuesday with one count of conspiring to commit intentional damage to a protected computer, which could result in up to five years in prison, and another count of intentionally damaging a protected computer, which could result in as many as 10 years behind bars. The two allegedly did so “as retaliation” for the U.S. killing of Soleimani, the leader of the terrorist-designated Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who is believed to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The duo are wanted and remain overseas.
“The hackers victimized innocent third parties in a campaign to retaliate for the military action that killed Soleimani, a man behind countless acts of terror against Americans and others that the Iranian regime opposed,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said. “Their misguided, illegal actions in support of a rogue, destabilizing regime will come back to haunt them as they are now fugitives from justice.”
The Justice Department said Mohammadzadeh and Abusrour began working together in late December 2019 “when Abusrour began providing Mahammadzadeh with access to compromised websites.” After the Pentagon announced that Soleimani had been killed by the United States, Mohammadzadeh allegedly transmitted computer code to approximately 51 websites hosted in the U.S. and defaced those websites by replacing their content with pictures of the late Soleimani against a background of the Iranian flag, along with the message, in English, “Down with America,” and other text. Abusrour also provided Mohammadzadeh “with access to at least seven websites, which they defaced with a similar image and text.”
The Justice Department said the duo “took credit online for their website defacements.” The 14-page criminal complaint said Abusrour even bragged about the hacking by sharing a screenshot of messages between him and Mohammadzadeh with his 11,000 Instagram followers back in January. Although the specific websites targeted are not mentioned in the complaint, pro-Soleimani hackers are known to have targeted the Federal Depository Library Program website, the Texas Department of Agriculture webpage, and many more. Mohammadzadeh claims to have defaced more than 1,100 websites since 2018, and Abusrour said he has done so to at least 337 webpages since 2016.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said in January that Soleimani “deserved to be brought to justice for his crimes against American troops and thousands of innocents throughout the region.” But he also condemned Trump’s actions as “a hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region” and claimed that Trump “just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.”
A few days after Soleimani’s death, Iran conducted a missile attack against Ain al Asad base in Iraq in retaliation in January, Although no U.S. soldiers were killed, more than 100 suffered brain or head trauma. Iran also shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane shortly after it had taken off in Iran, killing all 176 passengers and crew members on board, which it unsuccessfully tried to cover up and claims was an accident.
Politico reported over the weekend that the Iranian government is considering an assassination attempt against Lana Marks, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, as retaliation for Soleimani’s death.
“According to press reports, Iran may be planning an assassination, or other attack, against the United States in retaliation for the killing of terrorist leader Soleimani, which was carried out for his planning a future attack, murdering U.S. Troops, and the death & suffering caused over so many years,” Trump tweeted in response Monday night. “Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!”
“General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more,” the Pentagon said after Soleimani’s death. “He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months — including the attack on December 27th — culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel.”
The Defense Department added that the strike against Soleimani “was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”
“With this designation, we are sending a clear signal to the Iranian regime, including Qasem Soleimani and his band of thugs, that we are standing up to the regime’s outlaw behavior,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said when designating the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization in 2019. “The blood of the 603 American soldiers … is on his hands and the hands of the IRGC more broadly.”
The dramatic and violent storming of the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in late December by Iranian-linked militias followed the Iraqi government’s condemnation of U.S. airstrikes targeting Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia that was guided by Soleimani and run by his adviser Abu Mahdi al Muhandis, who was also killed in the U.S. airstrike. The U.S. blamed Kata’ib Hezbollah for attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, including one that resulted in the death of a U.S. contractor.
Iran increased its influence and footing in Iraq following the Obama administration’s military withdrawal from the country and the subsequent invasion by the Islamic State, with Iran backing Shiite militias influenced and often directed by Soleimani to fill the power void, and Iran received an influx of billions in cash as a result of the Iran nuclear deal, which the U.S. has since left under Trump.
