Justice Department seizes several websites it says spread terrorist propaganda
By Holmes Lybrand, Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
(CNN) — The Justice Department on Thursday seized several websites it says were used by Iran as part of “psychological operations” targeting perceived advisories and spreading terrorist propaganda.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security was using the four websites, in part, to post “sensitive data stolen during such hacks, and calling for the killing of journalists, regime dissidents, and Israeli persons,” the DOJ said in an announcement Friday.
Attorney General Pam Bondi warned that “terrorist propaganda online can incite real-world violence” in announcing the seizures while FBI Director Kash Patel said the “FBI will hunt down every actor behind these cowardly death threats and cyberattacks and will bring the full force of American law enforcement down on them.”
The website seizures come a week after men hundreds of miles away from one another attacked US institutions in American cities. Both attacks — one at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia and the other at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan — are being investigated as acts of terrorism.
The exact motives for each attack are still being investigated but the man who officials say drove a truck into the Michigan synagogue, before dying in a shootout with security, had previously been flagged in US government databases for connections with suspected members of the militant group Hezbollah, although he was not believed to be a member himself.
Separately, the man officials say killed one person and injured two others at Old Dominion University on Thursday was a veteran and convicted ISIS supporter. That man was killed by a group of students in the ROTC classroom where he opened fire.
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli strikes late last month. The strikes have continued each day since.
According to the Justice Department, the websites it seized posted photos, names and sensitive information on 190 Israeli government associates along with threats and warnings. The Justice Department says the websites were involved in other threats and hacking operations, as well as calls for assassinations against Iranian targets.
“Threat actors” associated with one website, the Justice Department statement said, “directed online threats toward individuals who publicly criticized the Iranian government.”
The goal of these campaigns, the Justice Department said, is to “discourage independent reporting” while “creating fear among members of the Iranian diaspora critical of the regime.”
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