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U.S.: Iran Aids Syria in Tracking Opposition
(Washington Post) Ellen Nakashima - Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security is providing crucial equipment and technical help to Syria in its effort to track opposition forces through the Internet and other forms of electronic surveillance, according to U.S. officials. Iran has long experience in tracking dissidents internally. Iran advises the Syrians on how to gain access to Web forums and chat rooms, where they pose as opposition members to identify and track targets, one intelligence official said. Syrian agents are then dispatched to kill the rebels. Pro-government hackers have covertly installed spyware on activists' computers by sending them e-mail and Skype messages purporting to be from opposition sympathizers that include attachments containing surveillance tools, said Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet privacy group.