It seems that the United States and Israel have not completely given up on covert efforts toward regime change in Iran, or at least on sabotage efforts to weaken the government’s hold over the population.
The precursor to Trump’s Operation Epic Fury was of course the January economic protests, which saw serious clashes with police and security forces, and left thousands dead. Trump subsequently claimed over 30,000 were killed – a very high, dubious number – according to many independent analysts.
At the same time US Treasury Secretary Bessent openly bragged about waging economic warfare to send the Rial plunging, which was a spark and catalyst for the destabilizing protests and unrest.
On Tuesday Al Jazeera reports on what could be renewed efforts to further weaken Iran from within. “Iran’s state-owned banking technology provider says attacks disrupted services at Bank Melli, Bank Saderat and Bank Tejarat,” the publication reports.
One theory among Washington hawks is that economic collapse can be engineered via external means (though Israel has also long bragged about having many assets on the ground inside the Islamic Republic).
Is the prior failed ‘plan A’ still on? …even as direct bombing has failed to achieve regime change?
According to more from Al Jazeera, referencing the major bank-focused cyberattacks:
This had prompted a temporary suspension of all card-related operations at the three banks to prevent further unauthorized access, the company told state TV, with cybersecurity teams working to restore normal operations.
The company’s public relations head said ATM services, point-of-sale terminals and mobile applications linked to card systems were all affected.
Major banks, including Melli, Saderat, Tejarat and the Export Development Bank of Iran, have faced disruptions first reported on June 14 after a cyberattack targeting a shared communication infrastructure, Iran’s banking coordination council has said.
As far can be assessed, there was no unrest or protests that resulted in this latest incident, and Iranian state media has in follow-up reported that the serious issues and lack of fund access for customers took several days to resolve.
“Iranian authorities have previously blamed hostile foreign actors, such as Israel, for similar incidents. Israel has previously not commented on such allegations,” the Tuesday report also noted.
Iran is bracing for more such cyber-provocations, given it is still technically at war with the US and Israel, and despite the signing of the peace MoU with the US, based on extending the ceasefire for at least 60-days, giving time for the nuclear issue to be dealt with.