New Delhi, April 5 -- On 31 March, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened that it would target 18, mostly American, technology companies in retaliation to US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

It declared that "since the main element in designing and tracking terror targets are American [Information and Communications Technology] and [artificial intelligence or AI] companies... the main institutions effective in terrorist operations [against Iran] will be our legitimate targets."

Employees were warned to vacate their workplaces and residents living within a kilometre's radius of their premises were told to evacuate to safety.

On Iran's target list were Cisco, HP, Intel, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, IBM, Dell, Palan...