WASHINGTON: With less than three months before the US election, Iran is intensifying its efforts to meddle in American politics, US officials and private cybersecurity firms say, with the suspected hack of Donald Trump’s campaign being only the latest and most brazen example.
Iran has long been described as a “chaos agent” when it comes to cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns and in recent months groups linked to the government in Tehran have covertly encouraged protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, impersonated American activists and created networks of fake news websites and social media accounts primed to spread false and misleading information to audiences in the US
While Russia and China remain bigger cyber threats against the US, experts and intelligence officials say Iran’s increasingly aggressive stance marks a significant escalation of efforts to confuse, deceive and frighten American voters ahead of the election.
The pace will likely continue to increase as the election nears and America’s adversaries exploit the Internet and advancements in artificial intelligence to sow discord and confusion.
“We’re starting to really see that uptick and it makes sense, 90 days out from the election,” said Sean Minor, a former information warfare expert for the US Army who now analyzes online threats for the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, which has seen a sharp increase in cyber operations from Iran and other nations. “As we get closer, we suspect that these networks will get more aggressive.”
The FBI is investigating the suspected hack of the Trump campaign as well as efforts to infiltrate the campaign of President Joe Biden, which became Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign when Biden dropped out. Trump’s campaign announced Saturday that someone illegally accessed and retrieved internal documents, later distributed to three news outlets. The campaign blamed Iran, noting a recent Microsoft report revealing an attempt by Iranian military intelligence to hack into the systems of one of the presidential campaigns.
“A lot of people think it was Iran. Probably was,” Trump said Tuesday on Univision before shrugging off the value of the leaked material. “I think it’s pretty boring information.”
Iran has denied any involvement in the hack and said it has no interest in meddling with US politics.
That denial is disputed by US intelligence officials and private cybersecurity firms who have linked Iran’s government and military to several recent campaigns targeting the US, saying they reflect Iran’s growing capabilities and its increasing willingness to use them.
On Wednesday Google announced it had uncovered a group linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard that it said had tried to infiltrate the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen people linked to Biden and Trump since May.
The company, which contacted law enforcement with its suspicions, said the group is still targeting people associated with Biden, Trump and Harris. It wasn’t clear whether the network identified by Google was connected to the attempt that Trump and Microsoft reported, or were part of a second attempt to infiltrate the campaign’s systems.
Iran has a few different motives in seeking to influence US elections, intelligence officials and cybersecurity analysts say. The country seeks to spread confusion and increase polarization in the US while undermining support for Israel. Iran also aims to hurt candidates that it believes would increase tension between Washington and Tehran.
That’s a description that fits Trump, whose administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions and ordered the killing of an Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.
The two leaders of the Senate intelligence committee issued a joint letter on Wednesday warning Tehran and other governments hostile to the US that attempts to deceive Americans or disrupt the election will not be tolerated.
“There will be consequences to interfering in the American democratic process,” wrote the committee’s chairman, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, along with Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the vice chairman.
In 2021, federal authorities charged two Iranian nationals with attempting to interfere with the election the year before. As part of the plot, the men wrote emails claiming to be members of the far-right Proud Boys in which they threatened Democratic voters with violence.
Last month, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said the Iranian government had covertly supported American protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. Groups linked to Iran’s government also posed as online activists, encouraged campus protests and provided financial support to some protest groups, Haines said.
Recent reports from Microsoft and Recorded Future have also linked Iran’s government to networks of fake news websites and social media accounts posing as Americans. The networks were discovered before they gained much influence and analysts say they may have been created ahead of time, to be activated in the weeks immediately before the election.
The final weeks before an election may be the most dangerous when it comes to foreign efforts to impact voting. That’s when voters pay the most attention to politics and when false claims about candidates or voting can do the most damage.
So-called ‘hack-and-leak’ attacks like the one reported by Trump’s campaign involve a hacker obtaining sensitive information from a private network and then releasing it, either to select individuals, the news media or to the public. Such attacks not only expose confidential information but can also raise questions about cybersecurity and the vulnerability of critical networks and systems.
Especially concerning for elections, authorities say, would be an attack targeting a state or local election office that reveals sensitive information or disables election operations. Such an incursion could undermine trust in voting, even if the information exposed is worthless. Experts refer to this last possibility as a “perception hack,” when hackers steal information not because of its value, but because they want to flaunt their capabilities while spreading fear and confusion among their adversaries.
“That can actually be more of a threat — the spectacle, the marketing this gives foreign adversaries — than the actual hack,” said Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former National Security Council analyst who specializes in cyber threats.
In 2016, Russian hackers infiltrated Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails, ultimately obtaining and releasing some of the campaign’s most protected information in a hack-and-leak that upended the campaign in its final weeks.
Recent advances in artificial intelligence have made it easier than ever to create and spread disinformation, including lifelike video and audio allowing hackers to impersonate someone and gain access to their organization’s systems. Nevertheless, the alleged hack of the Trump campaign reportedly involved much simpler techniques: someone gained access to an email account that lacked sufficient security protections.
While people and organizations can take steps to minimize their vulnerability to hacks, nothing can eliminate the risk entirely, Wilde said, or completely reduce the likelihood that foreign adversaries will mount attacks on campaigns.
“The tax we pay for being a digital society is that these hacks and leaks are unavoidable,” he said. “Whether you’re a business, a campaign or a government.”
‘Chaos agent’: Suspected Trump hack comes as Iran flexes digital muscles ahead of US election
https://arab.news/mtr95
‘Chaos agent’: Suspected Trump hack comes as Iran flexes digital muscles ahead of US election

- Iran has denied any involvement in the hack and said it has no interest in meddling with US politics
Trump, Ukraine propel EU and UK toward defense pact
- The EU and Britain look set to seal a defense pact at a landmark summit this month as worries about US President Donald Trump and the war in Ukraine spur them beyond the wrangles of Brexit
Multiple EU diplomats and officials told AFP the signs are positive that a security agreement will be inked when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets EU chiefs in London on May 19.
The “security and defense partnership” is billed as an important first step in Starmer’s much-vaunted push to reset ties after the years of bad blood caused by the UK leaving the bloc.
The move is aimed at opening the door to closer cooperation as both the EU and Britain race to rearm in the face of the menace from Russia and fears Trump will no longer help protect Europe.
That should mean more regular security talks, Britain considering joining EU military missions and the potential for London to fully tap into a 150-billion-euro defense fund being set up by the bloc.
But the deal is expected to leave much of the detail to be filled in later — for instance requiring a further agreement on giving the UK and its defense industry unfettered access to the EU programs.
“It is a pre-condition for more serious stuff,” said one EU diplomat, talking like others on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.
Diplomats said fears had subsided that a dispute over prolonging access to British waters for EU fishermen could derail talks as both sides are keen to improve relations amid the global turmoil unleashed by Trump.
“At this stage I’d say the odds are quite positive,” said a second EU diplomat. “But all the different files are linked, so lots can still happen between now and the 19th.”
The defense deal is expected to be signed alongside two other documents: one setting out a shared vision on global issues and another on the list of thorny subjects both sides hope to make progress on, including customs checks, energy links and a youth mobility scheme.
The drafts are set to be debated by EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday and need to be signed off by all 27 before they can be forwarded to the British for final approval.
London and Brussels are treading carefully as closer cooperation with the EU remains a politically divisive issue for Starmer who faces a growing challenge from diehard euroskeptics Reform UK.
Reaching the security pact was long seen as the lowest hanging fruit for negotiators given that Britain already has intertwined defense ties with 23 EU countries in NATO.
Those bonds have only tightened as Trump has rattled Europe by pushing for a quick end to the war in Ukraine.
Britain has teamed up with France to spearhead plans for possibly deploying troops to Ukraine in the event of any deal.
In the latest sign of the closer relationship, British foreign minister David Lammy will meet his EU counterparts for talks in Warsaw on Wednesday.
London said Lammy would “make the case for a long-term UK-EU strategic partnership that will support economic growth, protect citizens, and support European collective security and defense.”
“We are working hand-in-hand with our European allies to build a safer, more secure, and more prosperous Europe,” Lammy said in a statement.
“Together, we will stand firm against aggression, defend our shared values, and deliver lasting peace. “
India’s leader Modi touted all was well in Kashmir. A massacre of tourists shattered that claim

- The attack outraged people in Kashmir and India, where it led to calls of swift action against Pakistan
SRINAGAR, India: Hundreds of Indian tourists, families and honeymooners, drawn by the breathtaking Himalayan beauty, were enjoying a picture-perfect meadow in Kashmir. They didn’t know gunmen in army fatigues were lurking in the woods.
When the attackers got their chance, they shot mostly Indian Hindu men, many of them at close-range, leaving behind bodies strewn across the Baisaran meadow and survivors screaming for help.
The gunmen quickly vanished into thick forests. By the time Indian authorities arrived, 26 people were dead and 17 others were wounded.
India has described the April 22 massacre as a terror attack and blamed Pakistan for backing it, an accusation denied by Islamabad. India swiftly announced diplomatic actions against its archrival Pakistan, which responded with its own tit-for-tat measures.
The assailants are still on the run, as calls in India for military action against Pakistan are growing.
World leaders have been scrambling to de-escalate the tensions between two nuclear-armed neighbors, which have historically relied on third countries for conflict management.
But the massacre has also touched a raw nerve.
Early on Wednesday, India fired missiles that struck at least three locations inside Pakistani-controlled territory, according to Pakistani security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. India said it was striking infrastructure used by militants.
India admits security lapse
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has governed Kashmir with an iron fist in recent years, claiming militancy in the region was in check and a tourism influx was a sign of normalcy returning.
Those claims now lie shattered.
Security experts and former intelligence and senior military officers who have served in the region say Modi’s government — riding on a nationalistic fervor over Kashmir to please its supporters — missed warning signs.
The government acknowledged that in a rare admission.
Two days after the attack, Kiren Rijiju, India’s parliamentary affairs minister, said that a crucial all-party meeting discussed “where the lapses occurred.”
“We totally missed ... the intentions of our hostile neighbor,” said Avinash Mohananey, a former Indian intelligence officer who has operated in Kashmir and Pakistan.
The meadow, near the resort town of Pahalgam, can be reached by trekking or pony rides, and visitors cross at least three security camps and a police station to reach there. According to Indian media, there was no security presence for more than 1,000 tourists that day.
Pahalgam serves as a base for an annual Hindu pilgrimage that draws hundreds of thousands of people from across India. The area is ringed by thick woods that connect with forest ranges in the Jammu area, where Indian troops have faced attacks by rebels in recent years after fighting ebbed in the Kashmir Valley, the heart of an anti-India rebellion.
The massacre brought Modi’s administration almost back to where it started when a suicide car bombing in the region in 2019 prompted his government to strip Kashmir of its semi-autonomy and bring it under direct federal rule. Tensions have simmered ever since, but the region has also drawn millions of visitors amid a strange calm enforced by an intensified security crackdown.
“We probably started buying our own narrative that things were normal in Kashmir,” Mohananey said.
In the past, insurgents have carried out brazen attacks and targeted Hindu pilgrims, Indian Hindu as well as Muslim immigrant workers, and local Hindus and Sikhs. However, this time a large number of tourists were attacked, making it one of the worst massacres involving civilians in recent years.
The attack outraged people in Kashmir and India, where it led to calls of swift action against Pakistan.
Indian television news channels amplified these demands and panelists argued that India should invade Pakistan. Modi and his senior ministers vowed to hunt down the attackers and their backers.
Experts say much of the public pressure on the Indian government to act militarily against Pakistan falls within the pattern of long, simmering animosity between both countries.
“All the talk of military options against Pakistan mainly happens in echo chambers and feeds a nationalist narrative,” in India, New Delhi-based counterterrorism expert Ajai Sahni said.
“It doesn’t matter what will be done. We will be told it was done and was a success,” he said. “And it will be celebrated nonetheless.”
Modi’s optimism misplaced, experts say
Experts also say that the Modi government’s optimism was also largely misplaced and that its continuous boasting of rising tourism in the region was a fragile barometer of normalcy. Last year, Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s top elected official, cautioned against such optimism.
“By this attack, Pakistan wants to convey that there is no normalcy in Kashmir and that tourism is no indicator for it. They want to internationalize the issue,” said D.S. Hooda, former military commander for northern India between 2014 to 2016.
Hooda said the “choice of targets and the manner in which the attack was carried out indicates that it was well-planned.”
“If there would have been a good security cover, maybe this incident would not have happened,” he said.
India sees Pakistan connection to the attack
Indian security experts believe the attack could be a retaliation for a passenger train hijacking in Pakistan in March by Baloch insurgents. Islamabad accused New Delhi of orchestrating the attack in which 25 people were killed. India denies it.
Mohananey said that Indian authorities should have taken the accusations seriously and beefed-up security in Kashmir, while arguing there was a striking similarity in both attacks since only men were targeted.
“It was unusual that women and children were spared” in both cases, Mohananey said.
Two senior police officers, who have years of counterinsurgency experience in Kashmir, said after the train attack in Pakistan that they were anticipating some kind of reaction in the region by militants.
The officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that security officials perceived the threat of an imminent attack, and Modi’s inauguration of a strategic rail line in the region was canceled. A large-scale attack on tourists, however, wasn’t anticipated, because there was no such precedence, the officers said.
Hooda, who commanded what New Delhi called “surgical strikes” against militants in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir in 2016, said that the attack has deepened thinking that it was time to tackle the Pakistani state, not just militants.
Such calculus could be a marked shift. In 2016 and 2019, India said that its army struck militant infrastructure inside Pakistan after two major militant attacks against its soldiers.
“After this attack,” Hooda said, India wants to stop Pakistan “from using terrorism as an instrument of state policy.”
“We need to tighten our security and plug lapses, but the fountainhead of terrorism needs to be tackled,” Hooda said. “The fountainhead is Pakistan.”
Trump says only 21 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza now believed to be alive

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Tuesday that three hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have died, leaving only 21 believed to be still living.
“As of today, it’s 21, three have died,” Trump said of the hostages being held by Hamas, noting until recently it had been 24 people believed to be living. He did not elaborate on the identities of those now believed to be dead, nor how he had come to learn of their deaths. “There’s 21, plus a lot of dead bodies,” Trump said.
One American, Edan Alexander, had been among the 24 hostages believed to be alive, with the bodies of several other Americans also held by Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Israel.
The president’s comments came as Israel approved plans on Monday to seize the Gaza Strip and to stay in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time, in a bid to recover the hostages and try to fulfill its war aims of destroying Hamas. If implemented, the move would vastly expand Israel’s operations there and likely draw fierce international opposition.
Columbia University lays off nearly 180 after Trump pulled $400M over his antisemitism concerns

- Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment and seized a campus building in April, leading to dozens of arrests and inspiring a wave of similar protests nationally
NEW YORK: Columbia University said Tuesday that it will be laying off nearly 180 staffers in response to President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel $400 million in funding over the Manhattan college’s handling of student protests against the war in Gaza.
Those receiving non-renewal or termination notices Tuesday represent about 20 percent of the employees funded in some manner by the terminated federal grants, the university said in a statement Tuesday.
“We have had to make deliberate, considered decisions about the allocation of our financial resources,” the university said. “Those decisions also impact our greatest resource, our people. We understand this news will be hard.”
Officials are working with the Trump administration in the hopes of getting the funding restored, they said, but the university will still pull back spending because of uncertainty and strain on its budget.
Officials said the university will be scaling back research, with some departments winding down activities and others maintaining some level of research while pursuing alternate funding.
In March, the Trump administration pulled the funding over what it described as the Ivy League school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023.
Within weeks, Columbia capitulated to a series of demands laid out by the Republican administration as a starting point for restoring the funding.
Among the requirements was overhauling the university’s student disciplinary process, banning campus protesters from wearing masks, barring demonstrations from academic buildings, adopting a new definition of antisemitism and putting the Middle Eastern studies program under the supervision of a vice provost who would have a say over curriculum and hiring.
After Columbia announced the changes, US Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the university was ” on the right track,” but declined to say when or if Columbia’s funding would be restored. Spokespersons for the federal education department didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
Columbia was at the forefront of US campus protests over the war last spring. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment and seized a campus building in April, leading to dozens of arrests and inspiring a wave of similar protests nationally.
Trump, when he retook the White House in January, moved swiftly to cut federal money to colleges and universities he viewed as too tolerant of antisemitism.
Trump hopes India-Pakistan clashes end ‘very quickly’

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he hoped clashes between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan end “very quickly,” after New Delhi’s forces launched strikes and Islamabad vowed retaliation.
“It’s a shame, we just heard about it,” Trump said at the White House, after the Indian government said it had hit “terrorist camps” on its western neighbor’s territory following a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.
“I guess people knew something was going to happen based on the past. They’ve been fighting for many, many decades and centuries, actually, if you really think about it,” he added.
India and Pakistan have fought three full-scale wars since gaining independence from the British in 1947. Both claim Kashmir in full but administer separate portions of the disputed region.
“I just hope it ends very quickly,” said Trump.
India had been widely expected to respond militarily since gunmen shot dead 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir, mostly Hindus.
New Delhi has blamed militants that it has said were from Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organization.
Pakistan’s army said the Indian strikes targeted three sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and two in Punjab province, the country’s most populous.
Islamabad said that three civilians, including a child, had been killed in Indian strikes.
The Indian strikes came just hours after the US State Department issued a fresh call for calm.
“We continue to urge Pakistan and India to work toward a responsible resolution that maintains long-term peace and regional stability in South Asia,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
Her statement came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned of stopping water from flowing across borders following the Kashmir attack.