On the morning of September 7, the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, officially declared for the first time that Iran was behind the July 15 cyber-attack on the e-Albania system and that Albania would immediately cut off diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI).
According to him, four Iranian groups have organized the cyber-attack in the country.
Among them, one of the most notorious groups of international cyber terrorism, author or co-author of previous cyber-attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Emirates, Kuwait and Cyprus.
The head of the Albanian Government observed that the objective of the attack was the destruction of the digital infrastructure of the Government of the Republic of Albania, the paralyzing of public services, as well as the theft of data and electronic communications from government systems.
The response from the IRI government was not long in coming.
According to the spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Nasser Ka’nani, the decision taken by the Albanian Government is unfounded and only serves the American and Israeli conspiracy.
But why did the Government of Iran attack Albania and what could be the consequences of cutting diplomatic relations between the two countries?
For experts in the field, Iran certainly does not belong to the sophisticated powers in terms of cyber-attacks, as China, Russia, Israel or the USA can be.
But it ranks well among those powers that have advanced in the strategy and organization of their cyber war and have achieved sufficiently good results from those attacks.
IRI’s strategy in projecting regional power has always been that of using proxy actors and not direct war, to achieve strategic objectives.
It does the same in terms of its cyber operations.
Iran sees cyber-attacks as part of the asymmetric military capabilities it needs to confront primarily its main enemies, the US and Israel, and then their allies, and to project its power.
The use of non-governmental actors as proxies in cyber-attacks also serves to hide direct involvement in the attacks.
This, although in many cases the indications for such operations show the actors’ direct connection with the country’s security apparatus, namely the Ministry of Intelligence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The purpose of cyber-attacks is clearly to create advantages in its favour and to influence various events in the environments that Iran itself is interested in, making the cyber a valuable instrument of national power.
On the other hand, Iran has been the object of cyber-attacks over the years, and the major event that influenced Iranian awareness to strengthen in this aspect was the attack by the Stuxnet virus in 2010.
This was the first devastating cyber-attack against Iran.
Stuxnet was a computer virus (some assume it was created and spread by the US government in cooperation with the Israeli government) which managed to sabotage the Natanz enrichment plant.
In particular, the virus was supposed to disable the centrifuges of the enrichment plants.
Stuxnet created a lot of damage to Iranian self-confidence and marked the moment of IRI’s ascension in the field of cybernetics.
Since then, the Islamic Republic of Iran has regularly responded to sanctions or perceived provocations through cyber-attack campaigns.
He did this in the case of Albania, guilty in its eyes for the accommodation they give to the Mojahedin (MEK).
Read also: Will Iran attacks Albania?
The Mujahideen are among the Islamic Republic’s best-organized and largest opposition groups outside Iran’s borders.
Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Germany, Israel and the United States have over the years discovered significant cyber-attacks carried out by Iranian actors against their government, military or scientific institutions.
About 22 countries have suffered damage from various cyber-attacks in a span of 10 years.
It must be said that at least 21 of them have not taken any substantive action against the foreign State responsible for the attack, so Albania’s severance of diplomatic relations with the IRI can certainly be listed as one of the strictest measures taken against a cyber-attack.
How will Iran react to this?
From the answer that the spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry gave yesterday, the strongest reaction is directed to the USA.
As for the Albanian Government, it is said that this decision taken is unfounded and serves only the American and Israeli conspiracy.
The response given to the US in this regard undoubtedly has stronger tones.
The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs addresses him saying that the accusations against the Islamic Republic are “baseless accusations to guarantee freedom of action to the Mojahedin, who act as spies for the Americans”.
But this answer simultaneously reveals the political background of the cyber-attack that was reserved for Albania.
The latter is not the first country to break diplomatic relations with Iran.
Israel stopped them immediately after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, and a few months later, in April 1980, the USA did the same.
Canada would recall its ambassador in 2003 after Zahra Kazemi, a freelance photographer with dual Canadian-Iranian citizenship, is killed in custody in Iran, in what Canada describes as a state-ordered killing.
In 2012, after months of increasingly tough talks from Ottawa, Canada severed all ties, citing several factors, including its treatment of foreign diplomats, Iran’s support for Syria and its threats against Israel.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran in an escalation of tensions between the two states following the execution of Saudi Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
The cleric was among 47 people sentenced to death on charges of terrorism.
Saudi Arabia’s action is followed by Bahrain, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. The last two have resumed diplomatic relations this year.
The countries of the European Union themselves have various episodes when they have threatened or removed their ambassadors for certain periods from Tehran.
This happened in 1997, due to an assassination attempt in the Greek restaurant “Mykonos” in Berlin in 1992, where three members of the Kurdish Party of Iran were killed.
After a trial that lasted three and a half years, a German court concluded that the Iranian government was “directly involved” in the Berlin killings.
The chief federal prosecutor, Kay Nehm, issued an arrest warrant for Iran’s intelligence minister at the time, Ali Fallahian, and said Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and then-President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani knew about the crime.
Additional arrest warrants were issued for two Tehran-based agents of the same ministry.
In response to the case, EU governments withdrew their ambassadors from Tehran and abandoned their policy of “constructive engagement” with the Islamic regime.
In 2012, EU countries again recalled ambassadors and threatened new sanctions after the November 2011 attack on the British embassy in Tehran.
But what will happen with Albania?
Tehran’s newspapers on Thursday all reproduced the statement of the Foreign Ministry of Iran with the same title, very neutral.
At the moment, the attacks are mainly directed at the USA for the reference that Albania is a NATO country and Article 5 of the Atlantic Alliance can be activated, and then at Great Britain, where the newly appointed foreign minister took a stand against the Islamic Republic.
Newspapers near the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamene as “Kayhan” or near the Ministry of Intelligence as “Mashregh” have published short satirical italics ironizing the size of Albania and comparing it to a mosquito or a small fruit that considers itself a pineapple.
No threat, either direct or indirect, appears on the horizon at the moment.
But Iran knows how to wait, is not impulsive and makes decisions with a clear mind.
Tehran’s most likely reaction could be financing Albanian, Kosovar and Montenegrin Islamic radicals to create problems in Tirana.
They can attack the interests of the USA and even Great Britain in Albania in a demonstrative and not serious form.
Of course, the responsibility for these seemingly actions can pass to some local group.
As far as the MEK is concerned, the espionage activity will undoubtedly continue. Likewise, his activity will continue against the Islamic Republic.
Did Albania take the right action? Undoubtedly yes.
After all, it is a small country, with almost no interest in commercial or cultural relations with IRI.
In the face of such an attack, the response was appropriate.
Proof of this is the very reaction of the Secretary General of NATO, Jehns Stoltenberg.
“I strongly condemn the recent cyber-attack on Albania, which Tirana and other Allies have attributed to Iran. NATO and Allied experts are providing support. NATO is committed to continue raising our guard: to deter, defend against and counter cyber threats”.
