The group, which Western researchers believe is “one of several personas used by Iranian government cyberintelligence units,” opposes US support for Israel, Reuters reported. Their cyberattacks on US entities followed a major military attack from the US and Israel that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In their press release, the DOJ quoted from emails in which the group sent death threats to dissidents in the US.

“We the Handala Hack team, the loyal followers of the supreme leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, declare war on all the enemies of Islam in the West,” the group said.

On Friday, the group confirmed on their website that the hack on Patel’s email was in retaliation against the domain seizures:

Today, once again, the world witnessed the collapse of America’s so-called security legends. While the FBI proudly seized our domains and immediately announced a $10 million reward for the heads of Handala Hack members, we decided to respond to this ridiculous show in a way that will be remembered forever.

Hackers claimed that their data grab included confidential information about Patel, but that could not be independently verified.

“The so-called ‘impenetrable’ systems of the FBI were brought to their knees within hours by our team,” the group said on their website. “All personal and confidential information of Kash Patel, including emails, conversations, documents, and even classified files, is now available for public download.”

The FBI has yet to comment on the hack, and Patel has not posted about it on his X account as of this writing.