Swedish officers have accused Iran of orchestrating a cyberattack that concerned sending 1000’s of textual content messages to people in Sweden, calling for retaliation in opposition to those that burned the Quran in 2023.
In response to a senior prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist, the preliminary investigation performed by Sweden’s SAPO home safety company revealed that the Iranian state, by means of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was chargeable for the information breach at a Swedish firm that operates a significant SMS service.
The preliminary investigation has been closed, however Ljungqvist famous that this doesn’t imply the suspected hackers have been fully exonerated, and the probe may very well be reopened sooner or later.
The textual content messages, despatched in Swedish, have been attributed to a bunch known as the “Anzu staff” and contained threats in opposition to those that desecrated the Quran, referring to Swedes as “demons.” The protests involving the burning of the Quran have been held underneath the safety of Sweden’s freedom of speech act, regardless of inflicting a rift between the nation’s dedication to free speech and its respect for non secular minorities.
The incidents had briefly sophisticated Sweden’s bid to hitch Nato, as Turkey and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had blocked the accession, citing anti-Turkish and anti-Islamic protests in Stockholm. Nevertheless, Sweden finally grew to become a Nato member in March.
Iran’s supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had beforehand issued an announcement condemning the desecration of the Quran in Sweden, saying that it had “created emotions of hatred and enmity” in Muslim nations in direction of these accountable and their governments.
SAPO’s operational supervisor, Fredrik Hallström, accused international powers of exploiting vulnerabilities and performing extra aggressively, with out particularly naming any nation.
Sweden, like many Western international locations, doesn’t have any blasphemy legal guidelines, and there’s no particular regulation prohibiting the burning or desecration of spiritual texts.
In Could, Sweden’s home safety company had additionally accused Iran of utilizing established felony networks in Sweden to focus on Israeli or Jewish pursuits within the nation.