In the early hours of Saturday, various cities in Iran, Tehran included, experienced significant turmoil due to a wave of airstrikes orchestrated by the U.S. and Israel, resulting in the death of the nation’s supreme leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, alongside high-ranking officials. Reports indicate that this military operation coincided with cyberattacks aimed at the nation, one of which inundated a well-known phone application with notifications during a widespread internet outage across Iran.

These attacks followed several days of unsuccessful talks between Tehran and Washington. The discussions were prompted by weeks of large-scale protests that left thousands dead amid the nation’s most prolonged internet blackouts.

As missiles targeted Iranian urban areas, onlookers reported a surge of unsolicited notifications from apps—not from the struggling government, but seemingly from an external source. 

Users of the BadeSaba prayer application received numerous alerts on their devices, urging a “reckoning” and offering amnesty to anyone who stands against government forces, according to Wired.

One notification stated that the Iranian regime would “face consequences for their cruel and merciless actions against the innocent people of Iran,” suggesting that the application had been hacked to provide anti-government messages.

It remains unclear who is responsible for compromising the app, which has garnered over 5 million downloads.

The Jerusalem Post noted on Saturday that cyberattacks were executed as part of the U.S. and Israeli offensive in an attempt to restrain Iran’s reaction. Both the U.S. and Israel have been suspected of instigating cyberattacks on financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges to exert pressure on Iran’s leadership, which has held power since a revolution in 1989.

The disruptions have not been confined to Iran. The conflict poses a risk of extending throughout the broader Middle East, as Iran responds with its missiles.

Amazon reported technical difficulties at its data center in the Middle East located in the United Arab Emirates shortly after Iranian missiles targeted the coastal nation. Amazon stated that the outage was due to “objects striking the data center, igniting sparks and fire.”

The ongoing conflict is also expected to interfere with crucial e-commerce air and maritime routes, as vessels transporting goods through the Strait of Hormuz near Iran come to a standstill.

Doug Madory, internet analysis director at Kentik, indicated in a post on Bluesky that internet connectivity plunged to nearly zero following the airstrikes on Saturday morning. Networking company Cloudflare also corroborated the collapse of Iran’s internet on Saturday.