Concern in the US: This is how Iran could employ secret agents

American intelligence officials located an encrypted communication apparently originating in Iran, which, according to the assessment, may be used as an “operational activation signal” for dormant cells operating outside the country, ABC news reported yesterday (Monday). The report is based on an official warning by the federal government that was sent to law enforcement agencies in the United States, and raises the concern that Iran may use it to attack American targets in the world.

The warning is based on what is defined as a “preliminary signal analysis” of a broadcast that was received after the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei in the opening blow of the attack on Saturday last week. According to the alert, the intercepted transmission was transmitted through several different countries and appears to have originated in Iran.

Intelligence officials estimate that this is an encrypted message intended to reach “secret recipients” who hold the appropriate encryption key. This type of communication is designed to transmit instructions to secret operators or sleeper cells, without using the Internet or cellular networks, which is gaining renewed force against the backdrop of the internet blackout in Iran that has been going on for days.

The warning states that the messages may have been intended to activate dormant cells that had already been pre-positioned outside of Iran, or to convey instructions to them for action. However, the intelligence officials emphasize that at this stage it is not possible to determine the content of the messages that were received.

It is also stated that the very sudden appearance of a new broadcasting station, whose characteristics include rebroadcasting between countries, requires increased vigilance on the part of the security forces. Despite the fear, the alert emphasizes that there is currently no operational threat linked to a specific location. However, law enforcement agencies have been directed to increase surveillance for suspicious radio frequency activity.

Last week, the independent journalist Seth Hatana published that on the first day of the war, a “numbering station” was identified for the first time that began operating in Iran and broadcasts messages in Persian non-stop. Even then it was written that the assessment is that this is a radio station of an intelligence organization that transmits messages to its secret agents.

Such stations, known as “number stations”, have been used by intelligence services since World War I to transmit messages to agents in the field, but in the digital age have become rarer. Now that the internet in Iran has been cut off by the authorities, a relic from the Cold War era has been given new life and has become relevant again. According to an international group of radio amateurs who monitor these stations, this is the first new number station seen in years.

In the broadcast you can hear a male voice calling out in Farsi “Attention!”, and then reading groups of random numbers. The station broadcasts throughout Europe, and it is not clear who operates it, according to the Tana’s investigation. While according to some estimates this is an intelligence service that operates agents inside Iran, there are those who believe that this is an attempt by the Iranian intelligence to convey instructions to agents operating in the West.

If the estimates in the warning turn out to be correct, this may confirm the concerns expressed by security officials after the attacks by the United States and Israel in Iran. According to the same sources, dormant cells operating in Western countries may be used by Iran for retaliatory actions.

Even before the start of the war, it was reported in the New York Times that American intelligence detected “intelligence chatter” that Iran was preparing to activate terrorist cells to attack American targets, most likely in continental Europe. In general, there is no direct connection between the intelligence chatter detected in the US before the war and the message station that began operating in Iran the day Khamenei was eliminated and the war began, but both things may signal a similar threat.