Violent Extremist Organizations ... Cybersecurity

"Using a multi-faceted approach that targeted VEOs' technical infrastructure and online presence, CSE conducted active cyber operations to damage the credibility and influence of key group leaders, reducing their ability to inspire and lead."

"[The operations also aimed to] weaken trust and reduce cohesion between leaders and followers, undermining the unity and strength of these organizations."

Communications Security Establishment (CSE) Canada report

 

"It's difficult for me to get into details about the actual techniques that are being used, because if we share those techniques, then that impacts them and the effectiveness decreases."

"Violent extremism is a big one, because there is an immediate threat to Canada. So, what we've tried to do is highlight what the impact is [of CSE's cyber operations]."

"Our mandate in this sphere is foreign."

"Corrective actions included placing strict limits on information sharing and seeking assurances from CSE's trusted partners that the shared information was deleted."

"We absolutely do see that those two states [North Korea and Iran] pose a continued threat to Canada, just not highlighted in this report." 

Bridget Walshe, deputy Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security

This Dec. 5, 2017, photo shows flags of Canada and China prior to a meeting of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. A national security-and-intelligence watchdog says China and Russia are meddling in Canada's affairs. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Fred Dufour

 

While Canada's cyber-intelligence agency counters VEOs to neutralize violent extremist group leaders' computers and networks, it also extends its attention and actions to attack their reputation, credibility and trustworthiness with the distinct goal of undermining them, as revealed in the CSE's latest annual report, which outlines new information of what actions it  undertakes during the process of an "active cyber operation".

 

These are campaigns meant to disrupt, influence or interfere with online threats posed by hostile actors like foreign states, organized crime, or extremist groups, activities approved by Canada's defence ministry. These are actions transcending cliched images of tech impresarios in masks and hoodies hacking into the computers of threat actors, wreaking havoc on their information-technology systems that ordinarily take place. 

 

There were instances in the past year when CSE organized operations focusing on violent extremist organizations. Adversaries' online presence and reputation was targeted as an example, as well as their IT infrastructure. While in an interview, the associate head of the CSE said she was professionally unprepared to reveal particulars of online disparagement campaigns focused on leaders of violent extremist groups that were being addressed by her cyberagency group.

 

What she could reveal was that the agency was authorized to operate four active or defensive cyber operations in the fiscal year just passed, inclusive of an additional one that saw it target the ten largest ransomware groups affecting Canada.  The agency detected a ransomware group targeting Canadians working in a critical infrastructure sector; CSE identified and notified victims and disrupted activity by the criminal group through a cyber operation.

 

Legitimate businesses covertly supporting foreign governments' military, political and commercial activities for the purpose of undermining the Canadian Armed Forces were identified by the spy agency. CSE responded to 2,561 cybersecurity incidents affecting the Government of Canada or critical infrastructure providers over the past year; a 16 percent increase over the previous year.

 

Canada's critical infrastructure sectors such as energy, finance, food, water and manufacturing are increasingly being targeted by hostile actors. The People's Republic of China is identified by the CSE as by far the most prominent threat to Canada's national security; in activities ranging from espionage to intellectual property theft and transnational repression. Government, civil society, media, the defence industry and the R&D sector are all targets of China's actions in Canada.

 

And nor is Russia given a clean slate of behaviour against Canada as it continues to conduct espionage, spread disinformation and engage in influence operations against Canadians. Barely mentioned in the 2024-25 report, North Korea and Iran both pose cyberthreats, remaining problematic threat actors to Canada.  

"Nation states, in particular the PRC, are undertaking massive data collection campaigns, collecting billions of data points on democratic politicians, public figures, and citizens around the world."

"Advances in predictive AI allow human analysts to quickly query and analyze these data. We assess it likely that such states are gaining an improved understanding of democratic political environments as a result, [and are] almost certainly enhancing their capabilities to conduct targeted influence and espionage campaigns."

Communications Security Establishment Canada  

 

This is the (Iranian) Regime

"I've never heard anyone say, 'Why is Israel doing this. Everyone was saying, 'This is the regime, they are the root cause of this. They put us in this situation'."

"Every day for school, even in elementary school, there are flags of the U.S. and Israel on the floor -- [students] have to walk over the flags to start our morning."

"For the long-term situation, for the safety of the Jewish and Israeli people and the rest of the world, the only long-term and sustainable solution is regime change."

"Iranian civil society needs help from the world to do this."

Maral (identity withheld) 

 

"Economically, this is a country that, 40 years ago, was one of the fastest-developing countries in the world." 

"Since the revolution, it's become one of the most stagnant economies in the world -- thanks to corruption and mismanagement, but also the incredible international isolation as a result of the regime's foolish international policies, sponsorship of terrorism and pursuit of nuclear weapons." 

Kaveh Shahrooz, lawyer, activist, Macdonald-Laurier Institute fellow  

People step on the posters of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi as supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) take part in a protest, in Brussels, Belgium March 20, 2023.   (photo credit: REUTERS/Johanna Geron)

 

Most Iranians in spite of being exposed to years of institutionally enforced contempt and hatred against Israel and the United States, are not, in the wake of Israel's air attacks on the Islamic Republic, and the U.S.'s decision to bomb the country's three major nuclear installations blaming them for the situation they found themselves in. Identity concealed in fear of reprisals to herself and her family, 'Maral' spoke of the generalized view of ordinary life in Iran. Her sentiments in describing ordinary Iranians' view of the situation places matters in a  different perspective than that of the Islamist government that has been oppressing its people since 1979.

 

The Iranians whose views are that the country can only emerge from its isolation and dark reputation -- based on its record of promoting terrorism and its mission of becoming a nuclear nation while threatening its neighbours and the world at large -- through the difficult-to-achieve removal of the current theocratic government, to replace it with one that would focus on returning to its former governance of moderation and steady momentum toward political and social modernization.

 

Maral described how proscribed life has been from a young age to maturity in Iran, as the state engaged relentlessly in modelling its youth in the image of its ferocious detestation of Western democracy and its deadly hatred of Israel, never referred to other than as the "Zionist entity". Official regime slogans meant to reinforce among its population a loathing for the West and a country symbolizing a Western presence in the Middle East, popularized calls for 'death to America' and 'death to Israel' were as expected as the Nazi salute in 'Heil Hitler'.

 

Antiquated forms of punishment such as stoning, flogging and mutilation are still practiced in Iran and are in fact quite common. While some may argue that such punishments are necessary for preserving social order, the reality is that they are still used in modern-day Iran for the sole purpose of instilling fear, suppressing dissent, and discouraging opposition to the regime.

Women in Iran have also faced various forms of punishment for not adhering to the compulsory hijab laws, including arrest, imprisonment, fines, and even physical abuse. According to Dr. Shirin Ebadi, (Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Iranian Judge turned human rights activist), things were not always this way. Prior to 1979, women could choose not to wear the hijab and there was freedom of religion. By contrast, nowadays, atheists can be executed and Muslims who convert or change their religion can be punished and even put to death. Besides Islam, only Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism have been afforded some degree of recognition under the constitution. Other religions are not recognized at all, and adherents of these marginalized faiths have been persecuted and denied their citizenship rights. This includes the Baha’is, the Yarsanis and the Yazidis.  

Iranian university students have adopted a silent but telling pushback to the expectations that they follow the regime expectations of them, by exercising careful restraints to avoid treading on the outstretched flags in a growing move to resist the brutal theocracy. A large number of those students have dedicated themselves to supporting a growing desire to bring in regime change.

Ontario Bar Association 

 

Well over 200,000 expatriate Iranians are Canadian citizens, many arriving after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, others arriving more recently, from 2011 forward. Among them is an estimated several hundred who act as agents of the Iranian government on Canadian soil, promoting the Republic's malicious anti-U.S., anti-Israel narratives and supporting the Palestinian claim to the Jewish ancestral land that Israel sits upon, as their very own patrimony that Jews wrested illegally from the Arabs living there in the modern era.

 

The vast majority of Iranian-Canadians are outraged at the presence of Iranian agents of the Islamic Republic permitted by Canada's lax immigration division to remain in Canada along with the indifference of the Canadian government, despite proven links to the Regime. Living in Canada, Iranian agents threaten, harass and even plan assassinations of Iranian-Canadians judged by their regime handlers to constitute a risk to their plans of disarming their targets, deemed to present problematically to Iranian aspirations.

 

Among their targets, high-profile international human rights activist and former Parliamentarian and cabinet minister, Irwin Cotler. He was informed a year ago by the federal police, (RCMP), that he was the target of a plot to assassinate him. The community of ordinary Iranian-Canadians have been warning the Canadian government of the presence of high-placed Iranian officials in Canada, enjoying the country as a haven while operating to create divisions within communities in Canada. In so doing, to the present, speaking to deaf ears.

 

A police motorcycle burns during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic's "morality police", in Tehran, Iran September 19, 2022. iranintl.com

 

Europe: Preparing for War

"Russia emptied four brigades out of the Leningrad district to Ukraine, most of them actually killed."

"The reality is that when this war ends, Russia will start building up its soldiers on our border. But this is nothing new, it's not problematic."

"I'd ask people to stay cool, calm and collected. We know exactly what we're doing. We have full control over what's going on."

Finnish President Alexander Stubb

 

"The long term is just that Russia needs to take defence on the border with Finland more seriously now that Finland is a NATO member."

"If NATO and Russia go to war in the Baltics, the Finns aren't going to just sit there. They're likely going to counterattack and annex the Murmansk Peninsula – and the Russian nuclear forces and the Northern Fleet are all based in Murmansk."

"So the Finns can do quite a lot in terms of disrupting that by cutting the supply lines between St Petersburg and Murmansk."

Ed Arnold, senior research fellow for European security, International Security department, Royal United Services Institute defence think tank, United Kingdom

Before and after images from the Russian bases. Photo: Planet Labs PBC/Airbus /screenshot from SVT

 

Earlier this month Finland's public broadcaster, YLE reported the presence of a garrison being built for an artillery brigade by Russia, in a town close by the two countries' frontier. Half of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) land border is guarded by Finland against NATO's well-known adversary. A border that stretches out along over 1,300 kilometres.

 

There is a long history of conflict between Finland and Russia. As such, it is not surprising that Finland has been among the most dedicated European supporters and providers of military aide to Ukraine. In the face of Moscow's future intentions against Finland, its president states that his country remains "calm and collected", knowing through long experience what may be presenting for the not-too-distant future.

 

According to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, such preparations are of no surprise to NATO as well. The Kremlin, suggested Mr. Rutte, may be counting on a five-year opportunity when Russia's war imposed on Ukraine has been concluded, to turn its attention elsewhere, and Finland appears the most likely initial target.

 

Nordic officials have their own version of a potential timeline before such an attack takes place, giving it a shorter window, hastening preparations in the knowledge that Russia will focus on rebuilding its capacity to carry out a conventional attack on yet another of its neighbours. 

"Before 2022 there was an unmanned aerial vehicle regiment somewhat operating in the field – so it wasn’t totally abandoned. But it wasn’t being used for larger equipment such as helicopters."

"But now, after 2022, they have been refurbishing it, renovating it, clearing the overgrown areas – so it seems that they are intending to also ramp up their activities in that area too."

"We are seeing military activity, and we are seeing the Russians developing their military infrastructure and most likely training new soldiers. But it's not anything too radical at the moment."

"It's really difficult to say yet, because the war in Ukraine is still heavily ongoing, and achieving a truce seems to be extremely difficult. The future will show just how heavily the Russians will invest in all of this – military bases, new units, soldiers and so on. But as far as we know now, it's going to be significant."

Finnish military historian Emil Kastehelmi 

Finland’s border guard has completed the first 35km of a planned 200km fence on its eastern border with Russia. Photograph: Leonhard Föger/Reuters

 

Last week Finland's parliament approved a withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, banning anti-personnel landmines. The vote was 157 to 18 in Helsinki, when lawmakers firmly committed to back the government's proposal. The release from the convention was a political decision taken in April while addressing risks from Russia.

 

NATO leaders had agreed on a massive increase in defence spending for its member-states, each to pledge honouring a five percent gross domestic product to boost the 32-member-organizational military capacity in mutual defence against a common enemy. At the same time the group reiterated its "Ironclad commitment" to respond as a unified military group in defense of any of its members coming under attack. 

 

Some 175 kilometeres from the border, three large storage halls have been built in Petrozavodsk, each of which is judged to have the potential to  hold around fifty armed vehicles. As of April 2025, a fourth facility has been under construction. The new structures, according to analysts, may be intended to conceal an accurate number of the military vehicles to be stationed there.  

"[The developments appear to confirm earlier Russian statements about] military-technical measures [in response to NATO’s enlargement]."

"When we applied [Finland and Sweden] for NATO membership, Russia said it would take such steps. We are now seeing that happen."

Sweden’s Chief of Defence Michael Claesson 

 

"[The Russian government in April 2023 when Sweden and Finland jointed NATO, vowed to take] counter-measures."

"The enlargement of NATO is an encroachment on our security and on Russia’s national interests."

"We’re going to be following what happens in Finland closely … and how it threatens us."

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov

"[The Finns’] whole position was … we need to be ready to be able to face the Russians on our own."

"So that's their mindset, and it's how their military is configured. They can get 284,000 troops on declaration of war. That's significant."

"That’s probably more than the UK can get together, probably more than Germany, more than France – probably more than anyone else bar Poland at the moment."

Ed Arnold, senior research fellow for European security

 

Islamophobia Reigns!

"For decades, organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is also an adherent, have managed to embed themselves at all levels of Canadian Society."

"[The Muslim Brotherhood that has declared] jihad against the Jews [established a vast network of charities and fundraising across Canada]."

Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP)

 

"This report is a wake-up call for all Canadians."

"[The federal government should] designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and] immediately freeze public funding to suspect organizations."

"Our report exposes how federal agencies have become complicit in sustaining and legitimizing networks that promote antisemitic and anti-Israel ideologies under the guise of charity and social welfare."

"These entities are exploiting the very values of tolerance and pluralism that Canada holds dear, weaponizing public institutions against Jewish communities and undermining Canadian democracy itself."

ISGAP board adviser Dr. Charles Asher Small 

Haras Rafiq, left, a director at Secure Canada, is with the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy speaks at an event in Toronto. Photo by Rob Roberts/National Post

 

"We stand on Guard for Thee? The Growing Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on Politics, Academia, and Civil Society in America", published this week by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy on whose board of directors sits Canada's former justice minister Irwin Cotler. The report sounds a long-overdue warning of the prominent presence in Canada of an organization established in Egypt almost a century ago. The Muslim Brotherhood's primary focus is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. Antisemitic conspiracies is an integral feature of their ideology.  

 

Tellingly, while the Muslim Brotherhood has experienced no measure of suspicion by the Western governments they have inveigled their way into, establishing themselves as a respected group speaking for Islam and the welfare of Muslims in the global umma, they are recognized as a terrorist group and outlawed in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. That enlightened view in recognition of what the Brotherhood represents is not shared by Western democracies, a puzzling lack of awareness.

 

Ignorance of the fact that Hamas is a Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood prevails. A Florida-based research group, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, identified a number of Canadian charities with extensive links to the Muslim Brotherhood, pointing out their exploitation of Canadian law to enable them to raise funds for Muslim Brotherhood factions in the Middle East. Samidoun, based in Vancouver is one of them, recently declared a terrorist group by the federal government, but permitted to continue their Islamist agitation within Canada, along with fundraising.

 

NGO Monitor presents information about Samidoun in the European Union Parliament (March 2023)

 

The Muslim Association of Canada which boasts of being the "largest Muslim grassroots Canadian charitable organization", has been concerning in their influence in Canada on government and its agencies. A 2021 Canada Revenue Agency audit found "the concept of the Muslim Brotherhood appeared" in the charity's "governing documents". According to the Muslim Association of Canada, a "systematic Islamophobia" bias is in play, appealing the CRA audit that found sufficient grounds to revoke its charitable status, though it remains a registered charity on the federal government's database.

  

"This report is nothing more than recycled Islamophobic tropes dressed up as 'research' when in reality it's a biased, unsubstantiated hit piece that relies solely on discredited allegations -- allegations that were questioned by the Ontario Superior Court for their apparent bias and ultimately abandoned by the CRA in concluding its audit and reaching a resolution with MAC". Muslim Association of Canada rebuttal.

 

As it happens, the federal investigation revealed "most prominent members, directors and officials" of MAC were involved with either International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN-Canada) "or a network of charities that appear to have been used to propagate and fundraise for Hamas in Canada". Designated a terror entity in 2014, IRFAN-Canada transferred almost $15 million to Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza. 

"I think all Western countries have come to an understanding that the Brotherhood is a problematic group and I think the findings of all other countries apply also to Canada."

"The Brotherhood has an ability to push within Muslim communities narratives that are highly divisive, that are polarizing. It promotes values that are antithetical to those of Western constitutions when it comes to democracy, while it comes to women's rights, when it comes to gay rights, when it comes to freedom of religion, when it comes to antisemitism."

"[While the Islamist group itself] might not be directly engaged in terrorist activities, it promotes a narrative -- it mainstreams a narrative -- that lays the groundwork for jihadist groups to recruit. It creates this narrative of victimization: the narrative that Muslims are constantly under attack by the West with widespread Islamophobia."

Lorenzo Vidino, terror finance researcher, George Washington University Program on Extremism 

The leading Canadian Muslim advocacy group, the ISGAP report points out, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Originally known as the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN), it was an outgrowth of the U.S. CAIR group, "a self-described Muslim Brotherhood front organization".  

"This report does not serve Canadian interests. It amplifies foreign narratives designed to fuel Islamophobia and division within our society."

"Canadians should be concerned about foreign influence, particularly the foreign-funded industry of anti-Muslim hate that fuels reports like this."

"These authors should be ashamed of themselves for trafficking in Islamophobic tropes that endanger Canadian Muslims and undermine social cohesion."

Muslim Association of Canada 

Islamophobia is the trigger-word whose purpose is to invoke the non-Muslim conscience against bigotry against Muslims. It is the ultimate victimhood word, designed and designated to prick empathy for a beleaguered religious group. A group, in actual fact, that has made it a vital part of their purpose in life, faithful to the injunctions of the Koran, to vilify and reproach non-Muslims for their ungodly ways. To target Jews and kuffars as enemies of Islam.

 

It is the Muslim community following the example of the committed jihadists among them that have trafficked in antisemitism, harassing the Canadian Jewish population, excoriating and damning Israel, lauding the courage of Islamist terrorists as freedom fighters, suggesting that Jews deserved the rapine, torture, mass murder perpetrated on peaceful Israeli farming communities. And while vehemently and violently violating Canadian population cohesion by their divisive and unlawful actions, portraying themselves as victims. 

Protesters gather for the Sit-In for Gaza outside the Alberta Legislature on October 18, 2023 in Edmonton, Canada. (Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Interrupting Iran's Nuclear Program

"The fact that Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon State in the world that is producing and accumulating uranium enriched to 60 percent remains a matter of serious concern, which has drawn international attention given the potential proliferation implications."

"[The IAEA cannot] ignore the potential proliferation implications [and it is not in a] position to provide assurance that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively peaceful."

International Atomic Energy Agency 

 

"The Iranian regime is the most destabilizing force in the Middle East and the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world."

"A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a grave threat to global security and U.S. national security."

"Allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is an outcome that must never be allowed."

"This military escalation was ordered unilaterally, without Congressional authorization or meaningful consultation."

"There are important Constitutional implications that must be addressed going forward." 

New Jersey Democrat Senator Cory Booker

 

"Presidents of both [U.S. political parties] have deployed U.S. forces and ordered the use of military force, without congressional authorization, on numerous occasions."

"Over the last two decades, Congress has acquiesced more and more to uses of military force by presidents of both parties without congressional approval and with little congressional oversight."

Adjunct senior fellow for international and national security law, Council on Foreign Relations, John Bellinger

An Israeli Air Force fighter jets takes off for strikes in Iran, June 18, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

 

Three Iranian nuclear facilities, Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, were struck on Saturday in preemptive assaults by the United States, which decided to join Israel in its aerial bombardment of Iran's nuclear installations with a view to prevent the Islamic Republic from succeeding in the manufacture of atomic bombs to add to its ballistic missile arsenal in its aspirations to produce warheads. Short-range ballistic missiles to be used to destroy Israel, long-range missiles to strike the United States; as threatened time and again.

 

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the largest sponsor of world terrorism is estimated to possess sufficient uranium to enable it to create nine nuclear weapons after undertaking the short step to enrich its uranium product from the current 60 percent to the required 90 percent enrichment. "Since 16 February 2021, the Agency has not been able to verify Iran's total enriched uranium stockpile precisely on any given day", reads the IAEA's May report of verification and monitoring in Iran. 

 

As far as cooperating with the international inspection agency is concerned, Iran has never been open and above-board with respect to its nuclear plans and actual research and production practises. Inspectors were withheld the opportunity to monitor heavy water production required for the nuclear program; access to enrichment facilities were refused for Natanz and Fordow; and centrifuge inspections or other infrastructure were not allowed to proceed. 

 

Then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility some 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran in 2008. (AP/Iranian President’s Office)

 

Iran is a signatory to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between it and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany, agreed to in 2015. When the deal was signed then-U.S. President Barack Obama, described the outcome as: "The historic deal which will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon". This was a deal that failed to include Iran's emerging technology in the production of ballistic missiles, and one that completely sidestepped its primary links to terrorist groups.

 

Since that signing and the pledge inherent in its agreement a decade ago,  Iran has  hindered inspectors, flouted a key point of limiting levels of uranium enrichment to an agreed-upon 3.67 percent -- instead proceeding with enrichment of uranium to 60 percent in direct violation of the agreement. The Islamic Republic succeeded in amassing a stockpile of 408.6 kilograms of 60 percent uranium.

 

Figures from the IAEA state that 42 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium can produce one atomic bomb, enriched further to 90 percent. 408 kilograms therefore, represents a potential for nine weapons if further enriched. A controversy has erupted in the wake of Saturday's bunker-busting bombs aimed at penetrating the mountain fastness of the Fordow facility. There is uncertainty over the extent to which Iran's nuclear program was impacted. 

 

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his military leaders face an enemy with superior military hardware. Anadolu via Getty Images

 

Iran is unlikely to be entirely shut off from obtaining nuclear weapons in months or years into the future. What the strikes accomplished was to address the immediacy of the situation whereby prevention was required to ensure atomic bombs, so close to completion on the horizon, was set back for possibly a considerable amount of time. In that time, it would be possible, even feasible, that the regime would fall, and with it the Islamist ideology of acquiring weaponry of a striking calibre that could result in catastrophic loss of human life.

 

Were Iran to be left to its malign devices as it has been to the present time -- prior to Israel's unleashing of an aerial campaign of precision and determination to not only strike nuclear emplacements, but military and IRGC bases, weapons caches, along with assassinations of key government, military and scientific leading figures to send the program into disarray while eliminating many of the figures deeply involved in supporting nuclear weaponry development -- the production of nuclear weapons was assessed to be mere weeks or months ahead.

 

Iran's bad faith relationship with the nuclear inspectors, its hidden nuclear sites, its stated intentions threatening the survival of an entire country in the Middle East, naming other countries as enemies to be dealt with harshly as "Death to America" portends, made it a mandatory intervention of survival for at least two countries, and likely more, inclusive of the majority-Sunni Arab countries sharing the geography of the Middle East, which Iran's Shi'ite-led 'axis of evil' was groomed to conquer.

 

 

 

Iran has furthermore, trained and armed terrorist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq, providing them with updated technologically advanced rockets. There are no guarantees that Iran would withhold from its proxy terrorist groups atomic weaponry that would make them infinitely more dangerously effective at carrying out their directives from Iran to do its bidding in attacking and annihilating the Jewish state. Jihad demands total loyalty to the concept of killing non-believers as an obligation to Islam.

 

Terrorist groups in possession of nuclear weapons would represent a nightmare scenario of helplessness for any targeted population living in fear and  trepidation of imminent attacks by terrorist groups for whom a massive death toll would be viewed as a success in following through that obligation to prove to Islam that the world stands in awe and suspense over where and when the final blow from Islamist terror would strike in its challenge of the non-Muslim democratic world.

 

The decisions made by Israel and the United States in striking at Iran and its threatening forces was long overdue in view of the simmering antagonisms and terrorist attacks taking place throughout the world as Islamist terror normalized its presence as a counter-weight in world affairs to long-distant colonial rule and the supremacy of Western thought, technology, laws and values in a world that Iran believes belongs to Islam and its values and laws.

 

Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, an Iraqi militia trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards  Wilson Center

Solution to Iran's Nuclear Ambitions ... Regime Change

"Craters are visible at the Fordo site, Iran’s main location for enriching uranium to 60%. Entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit [at Isfahan, as had buildings] related to the uranium conversion process. At Natanz [the fuel enrichment plant had] been hit again."

"[But] no one [including International Atomic Energy Agency, was] in a position to assess the underground damage at Fordo."

"[Calling for inspectors to be allowed back] to Iran’s nuclear sites and account for the stockpiles of uranium, including, most importantly, the 400kg enriched to 60%."

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general, U.N.'s IAEA

 

"The fundamental reality remains that military action alone can only roll back the program by degrees, not eliminate it fully."

"[The success of the American attacks, particularly at the Fordo plant], is not immediately apparent. Imagery can’t show much about the damage down at the centrifuge enrichment hall, so the U.S. and Israel will be relying heavily on intelligence from inside the Iranian system"

"[But even if the destruction was widespread], Iran retains extensive expertise that will allow it to eventually reconstitute what aspects of the program have been damaged or destroyed."

"The Iranian nuclear program is decades old and draws on extensive Iranian indigenous expertise. The physical elimination of the program’s infrastructure — and even the assassination of Iranian scientists — will not be sufficient to destroy the latent knowledge that exists in the country."  

Darya Dolzikova​, senior research fellow, Royal United Services Institute think tank, London

A man walks past a billboard displaying images of top Iranian commanders and scientists killed in Israeli strikes early Friday, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

 

Just as there is no way to obliterate the fixation of the Islamic Republic of Iran's desired destruction of Israel, no method exists to destroy the obdurate determination of the Ayatollahs and the Islamic Republican Guard Corps, dedicated to mastering and producing the methodology and materials required to produce atomic bombs, nuclear warheads and their medium- to long-range ballistic delivery systems. North Korea developed its nuclear program in defiance of world opinion because paranoia drove it to have that ultimate weapon.

 

The Islamic Republic of Iran would not be the only Islamic nation in possession of nuclear weapons, politically unstable Pakistan has its nuclear arsenal, and its deadly conflicts with India, another nuclear country, constitutes a risk of spectacular proportions. The Islamic regime in Iran is the world's leading state supporter of terrorism. And its direct threats against the existence of other countries -- most notably Israel, but the United States as well -- make it an imperative that their aspiration of nuclear 'defence' be denied.

 

People watch from a bridge as flames from an Israeli attack rise from Sharan Oil depot, following Israeli strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 15, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

 

Israel's daring aerial attacks that began over a week ago targeting the minds that promote nuclear weaponry, their military, their nuclear sites, weapons bases, airfields and naval ports in the interests of preventing Iran from taking the imminent final steps to ownership of the nuclear prize, was a start, one long overdue, given the force of Iran's malevolent actions through its terrorist proxies and its ultimate goal soon to be realized of having the means to obliterate Israel from the Middle East.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump's telegraphed and well-publicized messages that he might and he might not, but likely would proceed in aiding Israel in its goal of destroying the nuclear enrichment sites that augured ill for its existence, served to give advance notice to Iran that it would be well advised in preservation of its goal, to remove the advanced centrifuges and the enriched uranium stockpiled in the three nuclear sites, Fordo, Isfahan and and Natanz as a precaution. The mystery now is where they have been taken to.

 

A combination picture shows satellite images over Fordow underground complex, before and after the U.S. struck the underground nuclear facility, near Qom, Iran, June 20, 2025 (L) and June 22, 2025. via Maxar Technologies

 

Their very existence and the determination by the theocratic regime to continue its mission of nuclear thrust guarantees that the ceasefire that President Trump demanded would lead to a further commencement by Iran of its nuclear program at a time and a place of its choosing. It has, to the present, forged on, despite censure and sanctions, setbacks and opposition, and will continue, in the belief that it pursues a sacred mission dear to Islam in the destruction of Israel and by extension all non-faithful.

 

A cataclysmic upheaval caused by a nuclear detonation would have the effect of hastening the appearance of the Hidden Mahdi upon which event Armageddon would occur, destroying everything and everyone on Earth.  Muhammad al-Mahdi, worshipped in Shi'ite Islam, believed to be the twelfth and last Imam, destined to reappear and bring justice to the world. Justice comprised of mass death to non-Muslims and any Muslims failing to follow Shi'ism for only they will be elevated to a heavenly state, all others will perish.

 

Iranian flags fly as fire and smoke from an Israeli attack on Sharan Oil depot rise, following Israeli strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, June 15, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

 

This ultimate reward for faith requited yearned for and eagerly awaited. The means by which the Islamic Republic can hasten the arrival of the Hidden Imam, is to trigger a massive upheaval, awakening the present-but-not-present Imam to usher the Shia faithful to heaven and punish all others for their untoward unwillingness to embrace Islam, the religion of peace. 

 

Australia: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at a news conference Monday that Iran “cannot be allowed to get a nuclear weapon.” He said: “The US action was directed at specific sites central to Iran’s nuclear program. We don’t want escalation and a full-scale war,” adding that Iran had “failed to comply” with international obligations.

United Kingdom: Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged Iran to return to the negotiating table after the US strikes, saying on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear program “is a grave threat to international security. Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat.” Hours later, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy echoed the prime minister in a post on X, adding: “The UK did not participate in these strikes. We urge Iran to show restraint and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis.”

France: Foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said France had noted the US strikes “with concern,” and that it had not participated. “France has repeatedly expressed its very firm opposition to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons,” he said.

Japan: Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said “a de-escalation as soon as possible is more important than anything” but that “at the same time, Iran’s nuclear weapons development must be stopped.”

Saudi Arabia: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Kingdom is following “with deep concern” the developments in Iran and urged the international community to increase its efforts toward a “diplomatic solution that would guarantee an end to this crisis and lead to turning a new leaf toward achieving security and stability around the region,” in an Arabic-language statement.

Qatar: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that “dangerous tensions experienced by the region will lead to catastrophic escalations on both the regional and international fronts.” It urged all sides to “exercise wisdom and self-restraint,” and avoid further escalation that would impact people in a region already beset by conflict and humanitarian crises.

Kuwait: The foreign ministry singled out the United Nations Security Council in a call “to honor its responsibilities to maintain global peace and security.” Its statement called for an “immediate and complete halt of any and all forms of escalation, for a complete ceasefire of military activity, and for a complete ceasefire of military activity, and for restraint of language and self-restraint.”

 

Traces are seen in the sky after Iran's armed forces say they targeted The Al-Udeid base in a missile attack, in Qatar, June 23, 2025 (credit: REUTERS/STRINGER)

 

Why It Was Time To Fold Iran's Nuclear Aspirations

"Iran continued supporting acts of terrorism through its proxies and partner groups -- such as Hezbollah, Ansar Allah [Houthis], Hamas and al-Ashtar Brigades -- in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon. Palestine, Syria and Yemen."

"[Iran is the world's] leading state sponsor of terrorism." 

"[The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] has supported terrorist] recruitment, financing and plotting across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas." 

U.S. State Department, Country Reports on Terrorism, 2023

 

"Over the past 40-plus years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has targeted dissidents, western opponents, Israelis and Jews in assassination plots, abduction plots and surveillance operation that facilitate both." 

"Iran has carried out such external operations around the world."

Combating Terrorism Center, West Point, 2022 study 

Iranians burn US and Israeli flags during an anti-Israel rally in Tehran on June 20. Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

 

Last month the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report that found Iran had stockpiled sufficient enriched uranium to build nine nuclear bombs. The IAEA chastised the regime for its attempts to shield areas of its nuclear program from their inspectors. The regime is known to have been developing weapons able to carry out its plans to annihilate Israel, enriching uranium to 60 percent, a short step from producing the 90 percent enrichment for the creation of an atomic bomb.

 

Iran's fixation on destroying Israel is not a covert operation. In 2005, then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood before the General Assembly of the United Nations and spoke of the need to see that Israel was "wiped off the map". He spoke too of the otherworldly aura he felt surrounding him, attributable to the unseen presence of the Hidden Mahdi, soon to be revealed, and with that the world would be destroyed, Armageddon. Only those faithful to Islam would be guaranteed a place in Heaven.

 

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Photo: Justin Lane/EPA

That guarantee would be assured only for Shi'ite Muslims, all others would perish; non-Muslims and Muslims in the majority who practise the Sunni version of the faith. Until that blessed event occurred, the Islamic Republic focused on destroying the Jewish state, a long tradition of violent enmity targeting Jews that turned afterward on others deemed unfit to live. The fascist element of most such ideologies. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke of Israel as a "cancerous tumour" to be "removed and eradicated".

 

This man of God, albeit the God of Islam, advocated on his website for a "final solution" to address Israel's existence; reminiscent of the Nazi genocidal fixation that produced the Holocaust. Through its proxy terrorist militias in Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen, as their benefactor, inciting them to act on behalf of Islam's injunction to jihad, the Islamic Republic tutored and armed and financed strategies of terrorist attacks against Israel over the years, culminating in the Hamas invasion of October 7, 2023 of southern Israel resulting in thousands of terrorists and Gaza civilians raping, looting, torturing, murdering Israeli children, women, and the elderly.

 

Hamas is still  holding 52 dead and living Israelis as hostages, of the original 250 that were abducted out of Israel and held by terrorists and Palestinian civilians in inhumane conditions of starvation, torture and sensory deprivation. That was the latest mass atrocity forced on Israel. Previous events included attacks on international Jewish targets by Iran's proxies in past years in South America, that terrorized Jews, destroyed their institutions, and left diaspora Jews to mourn their dead.

 

Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 was shot down in 2020 by the IRGC -- ostensibly confusing the civilian airliner with an incoming U.S. missile -- after take-off from Tehran, killing all 175 passengers and crew on board. Iran's dread reputation as one of the world's most lethally ruthless regimes posing a threat to other countries has been well earned. Iran ranks 163 of 165 countries listed on the "Human Freedom Index" published by the Cato and Fraser Institutes. Iranian civilians are repressed and oppressed by their ruling mullahs. Women are forced to adhere to a strict dress code or face imprisonment and sometimes death.

 

When Iranians rebelled in 2022 after the arrest and murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman whose crime was failure to wear a hijab in the prescribed manner, the regime cracked down to the extent of killing an estimated 550 protesters, and arresting close to 20,000 demonstrators. Iran's sharia code of law saw it carrying out executions yearly at a rate far exceeding any other country. Some 975 people were hanged last year, among them political dissidents and those arrested for protesting Mahsa Amini's murder. 

 

An Israeli Air Force pilot is seen heading to an F-16 fighter jet before taking off for strikes in Iran, in a handout photo published June 22, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

 

It was past time for the Islamic Republic's aspiration to achieve nuclear status to be forcefully denied, when negotiations to persuade it to relinquish its nuclear plans fell on deaf ears. Israel began an aerial bombardment over a week ago to destroy Iran's nuclear plants. In the process with pinpoint accuracy the Israeli Airforce eradicated leading political, military, nuclear-scientific and IRGC figures involved in strategies meant to annihilate Israel.

 

The bombardment was relentless, hitting nuclear plants, military bases, IRGC training centers, and the regime's national network towers. Iranian airports were hit, planes destroyed, the country's naval bases hit as well as their ships. Israeli planes flew over Jordanian airspace, refuelled in midflight and continued on to Iran, hitting the capital Tehran, in its planned mission to destroy Iran's nuclear program, and its ballistic missile production sites and weapons depots.

 

Iran counter-attacked, sending drones and missiles into Israel.  Most of the projectiles were met in midair by Israeli defense technology. Those that landed generally did so in open spaces. It was, for the most part, debris from the drones and missiles hit en route before landing, that caused most of the damage, on falling to earth. But there were some direct missile hits, causing injury and death to Israelis, in fortunately small numbers. Warning sirens sent people to bomb shelters, interrupting the course of normal days for over a week. 

"[Israel is] very, very close [to achieving its goals in Iran]. We are setting them back, we are removing the threat."

"We won’t pursue our actions beyond what is needed to achieve [the goals], but we also won’t finish too soon. When the objectives are achieved, then the operation is complete and the fighting will stop."

"I have no doubt that this is a regime that wants to wipe us out, and that’s why we embarked on this operation to eliminate the two concrete threats to our existence: the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat. We are moving step by step towards achieving these goals. We are very, very close to completing them." 

"I told him [President Trump' of our need to act, and he understood it very well. And I knew that when push comes to shove, he would do the right thing. He would do the right thing for America. He would do the right thing for the free world. He would do the right thing for civilization."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  

Members of the Israeli security forces check the apparent remains of an Iranian ballistic missile lying on the ground on the outskirts of Qatzrin, Golan Heights, Israel, on Monday, June 23, 2025. (Photo by MICHAEL GILADI/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty

 

The United States under its president, Donald Trump, made a decision to get involved, using the only heavy-duty bombs capable of penetrating the mountain fastness of Iran's major uranium-processing installation at Fordow. With all of Iran's major nuclear plants destroyed, its airforce now decimated, its naval fleet destroyed and its leadership in disarray, what could not be accomplished through diplomacy has now seen success through the medium of armed conflict. 

 

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon in Washington, June 22, 2025, after the US military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel’s effort to destroy the country’s nuclear program. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)