Tehran, November 15 - Security officials of the Khamenei regime believe Israel's secret intelligence service has hacked the clock in Iran's capital that counts down to the Jewish State's predicted destruction, causing it to keep starting over.
Sources in Iran's intelligence community who requested anonymity reported Monday that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ordered the clock shut down until the source of the Mossad hack could be isolated and neutralized.
"Every hour the thing is out there and not working is an embarrassment for the regime," noted one official with knowledge of the incidents. "The first couple of times it was attributed to power failures, software glitches, and the like. But as time went on and the clock kept not showing that Israel's destruction was getting closer, operators began to suspect something more sinister was afoot. At least one technician on the team has already been imprisoned."
"This is at least as advanced as Stuxnet," concurred another official, referring to a successful attempt several years ago on the part of suspected Israeli and American hackers to introduce delays into Iran's nuclear program via sabotage of centrifuges by causing them to overheat but still display monitoring details as if the system were functioning properly. "It might even be on par with the stealing of Islamist activists' shoes, in terms of technical sophistication."
Analysts observed that while the propaganda effect of the clock, when it operated properly, could not be measured, its neutralization provides a clear public image victory for Israel. "Iran talks up destroying Israel all the time, so individual moves in that respect kind of get lost in the shuffle," explained Asghar Bukhari, a London-based Middle East expert. "But in the Islamic world appearances are really, really important, so this one case of Israel undermining an Iranian propaganda device in such a way that embarrasses Iran - well, that carries weight."
The episode would be at least the sixth time since 2006 that the Mossad has, according to Iranian intelligence, sabotaged strategic facilities inside the Islamic Republic. Aside from the countdown clock and Stuxnet, intelligence officials from multiple countries believe Israel had a hand in several occasions on which Ayatollah Khamenei emerged from the bathroom with toilet paper clinging to his shoe. In 2015 operation, the Mossad also released onto the internet a detailed account of the pornography-consumption habits of multiple Arab heads of state and terrorist leaders, including Khamenei. The Supreme Leader then compounded the embarrassment by denying that the genre alleged to be his favorite was different from his actual preferences