The Revolutionary Guards have ordered their members to completely stop using electronic devices for fear they are booby-trapped by Israel, Reuters news agency reported this morning (Monday).
According to two senior security sources in Iran, the Revolutionary Guards ordered thousands of their members to stop using all electronic devices, not just communication devices like those that exploded in the hands of Hezbollah members in Lebanon last week. One source said that a very extensive operation has begun to examine all devices, not just specific communication devices. He clarified that many of them are produced domestically or imported from Russia and China.
Another senior official said that Iran is very worried about the infiltration of Israeli agents into its ranks, and has opened an investigation into several people, including members in senior and mid-level ranks of the Revolutionary Guards. "This includes examining bank accounts in Iran and abroad, including the history of those individuals and their family members," a security source told Reuters. Last night, the Iranian news network SNN reported that 12 operatives were arrested "who collaborated with Israel with the aim of harming security services in Iran."
Security officials in Iran did not provide information on the current communication methods in the organization now, among its nearly 200,000 members. "For now, we are using end-to-end encrypted messaging systems," he said. The Revolutionary Guards urgently approached Hezbollah and asked to receive a technical assessment of the situation from them, and several examples of communication devices and pagers that exploded in the hands of Hezbollah members were sent for examination in Tehran. One of the sources in the article said that Iran's security forces haven't used pagers for about two decades.
Another issue that greatly concerns Iran and the Revolutionary Guards these days is the security of nuclear facilities and missile bases. "Since last year, we have significantly increased the defense array on these sites," the report said. "We have never before taken such strict security measures as we are taking now."
Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that senior officials in pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and terrorist organizations in Judea and Samaria said that they too have completely stopped using electronic devices for fear of being trapped by Israel. Those officials said they have begun checking the devices and presented new procedures for using various types of devices by operatives in their ranks.
"We will take extreme security measures and distance ourselves from electronic devices," said a senior commander in Islamic Jihad in Jenin. He said his men have been avoiding using cellular devices for a long time and recently began to stop using handheld radio devices as well, for fear that Israel is tracking them through them.
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