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Iran’s cognitive warfare – when AI becomes the operating layer of state propaganda Iranian state-linked influence operators were not using artificial intelligence simply to write faster social-media posts. According to Anthropic’s September 2026 threat intelligence report, three separate operations connected to Iranian propaganda institutions were using Claude to help construct the machinery behind what the operators themselves called “soft war” and “cognitive warfare” – non-military efforts intended to shape public opinion inside Iran and abroad. Anthropic linked the activity to the Islamic Culture and Communications Organization (ICCO), which operates under Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance; the Islamic Propaganda Office of Khorasan Razavi; and the Bina Cultural Observatory, part of the Islamic Propaganda Organization. The company said each operation was run by someone working within or on behalf of the named institution. The attribution was based on a combination of account telemetry, institutional references disclosed during conversations, branded documents and open-source corroboration. Anthropic subsequently removed the accounts. AI as an operational headquarters The most significant feature of the operation was the role assigned to AI. Claude was used to develop campaign plans, doctrine manuals, coded project portfolios, persona systems, target databases, early-warning protocols, amplification schedules and ministerial planning documents. Anthropic described the model as the principal administrative and operational layer supporting the three campaigns, allowing relatively small groups of operators to create organisational structures and planning material that would otherwise have required a much larger staff. This distinction matters. The reported use of AI went considerably beyond content generation. Operators were using the model to help organise how influence activity should function: which audiences to target, which identities should deliver particular narratives, how official material should be repackaged and when amplification should take place. Human operators still determined objectives and supplied the underlying political doctrine; AI helped translate those decisions into an operational system. Anthropic found that all three operations explicitly connected their activity to Jihad al-Tabyin, often translated as “explanatory jihad”, a concept used within the Iranian state system to frame information activity as both a strategic and ideological responsibility. In internal planning material examined by the company, this doctrine was not merely rhetorical: it informed manuals and campaign structures used by the operators. ‘Not the narrator, but the director’ One sentence contained in the ICCO material captures the model particularly clearly. According to Anthropic, an operator described the role of Iranian cultural attachés as being “not to be the narrator, but the director” of the narrative. The distinction reveals the logic of attribution laundering. Instead of publishing an overt state message and asking foreign audiences to believe it, the operator attempts to create the appearance that the same narrative emerged independently from journalists, activists, foreign writers or ordinary citizens. Anthropic found that Claude was used specifically to make content appear to come from foreign authors or independent media organisations and to design hashtag campaigns that looked grassroots rather than centrally organised. The ICCO operation reportedly used the organisation’s international cultural network as part of this structure. Anthropic found ministerial-level documents carrying official ICCO branding, including a nine-part international influence portfolio. This makes the operation particularly significant because the infrastructure was not limited to anonymous social-media accounts; it intersected with formal state institutions and an existing network of cultural representation abroad. A multilingual content factory A second operation was associated with the Islamic Propaganda Office of Khorasan Razavi and what Anthropic described as a “cognitive warfare command room” operating from a seminary in Mashhad. Its organisers ran a multi-province content production system known internally as Manjanegh, or “Catapult”. According to Anthropic, dozens of activists were involved in repackaging publicly available reporting from Iranian security institutions under different personas so that the material no longer appeared directly connected to those institutions. The network used Claude to transform official government intelligence bulletins into customised material in Farsi, Arabic, Urdu, Malay, Spanish and English, while planning expansion into a total of 20 languages. Distribution extended across Iranian platforms such as Eitaa, Bale and Rubika and international services including X, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok and YouTube. Anthropic also documented paid amplification across more than 100 Iranian channels, including channels associated with IRGC narratives. The scale should nevertheless be interpreted carefully. Anthropic documented production infrastructure and some real-world dissemination, but it did not demonstrate that all planned campaigns were fully deployed or that they meaningfully changed public opinion. The company placed the operation in Category Three of its Breakout Scale, indicating multi-platform activity with content observed in external distribution channels, rather than evidence of strategic impact on entire populations. From security bulletins to apparently independent voices The Bina Cultural Observatory operation provides another example of the same architecture. Anthropic linked a director-level official at Bina to activity in which Claude generated messaging in the voice of an IRGC spokesperson. During the 2026 US–Israel–Iran war, the network also attributed false claims to Western institutions including CSIS, Brookings and RAND. The apparent objective was to make Iranian state-aligned claims look as though they had been independently validated by respected foreign research organisations. That technique is more sophisticated than simply publishing propaganda under a false name. It attempts to manufacture a chain of external validation: official information is transformed into apparently independent commentary, which can then be recirculated as evidence that outside observers have reached the same conclusion. Anthropic also found target databases naming international officials and Iranian opposition figures, as well as aggressive counter-narrative material directed against the Bahá’í community. These findings show that the infrastructure was designed not only for broad messaging but also for targeted influence activity against specific groups and individuals. What AI changed The Iranian operations described by Anthropic did not create a new doctrine of influence. Iran has used cultural institutions, official media, aligned organisations and covert or semi-covert online networks for years. What AI changed was the economics and organisational capacity of that model. A relatively small team could use the system to draft doctrine, create personas, translate material, structure target databases, produce campaign calendars and generate multiple versions of the same message for different audiences. The operator remained responsible for intent, political direction and selection of targets. AI reduced the amount of human labour required to turn those decisions into a functioning influence operation. The most revealing part of the case is therefore not that an Iranian propaganda network used a chatbot. It is that AI was being treated as part of the back office of information warfare – a system for converting state doctrine into apparently decentralised, multilingual and plausibly independent voices. Sources Anthropic — Detecting and countering misuse of AI: September 2026 https://www.anthropic.com/threat-intelligence-report-september-2026 Iran International — Iran state-aligned accounts used Claude to push IRGC narratives https://www.iranintl.com/en/202609105561 BNE IntelliNews — Yemen missile cell used AI to write guidance software, Anthropic says https://new.intellinews.com/articles/yemen-missile-cell-used-ai-to-write-guidance-software-anthropic-says-467296 This is Beirut — Anthropic report details Iranian propaganda operations https://thisisbeirut.com.lb/news/politics/anthropic-report-details-iranian-propaganda-operations-and-yemen-missile-development-using-claude Anthropic report — PDF mirror https://static.foxbusiness.com/foxbusiness.com/content/uploads/2026/09/anthropic-detecting-and-countering-091026-1.pdf Keywords #DISINFORMED #Episode11 #Iran #IranianInfluence #IranianPropaganda #CognitiveWarfare #SoftWar #JihadAlTabyin #Disinformation #InformationWarfare #InfluenceOperations #ForeignInterference #FIMI #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AIPropaganda #GenerativeAI #ClaudeAI #Anthropic #SyntheticMedia #NarrativeManipulation #NarrativeLaundering #AttributionLaundering #PersonaNetworks #Astroturfing #SocialMediaManipulation #DigitalInfluence #StatePropaganda #IslamicCultureAndCommunicationsOrganization #ICCO #IslamicPropagandaOrganization #KhorasanRazavi #IRGC #MultilingualInfluence #Targeting #Amplification #OSINT #WRLD

“Intendiamo incidere sulle scelte pubbliche mettendo al centro il tema dei temi: la pace, che significa disarmo, cambiamento della politica estera, nuovo multilateralismo”“Il nostro è un monito che lanciamo a partire dall’urgenza assoluta di fermare la guerra in Ucraina e il genocidio del popolo palestinese – dichiara Claudio Grassi, coordinatore nazionale di Disarma. #Pace #Guerra #Disarmo

First, they carried out a classic military coup in 64, and in the wake of it, they created Globo as a strategy for perpetual demobilization, paving the way for all kinds of media manipulation that we see rampant today in Brazil. It's not a broadcaster; it's an advanced post of political alienation and brainwashing. We will not echo the debate! We will not watch! The audience must be for LULA ON FLOW! BRAZIL WITH LULA ON FLOW DO NOT WATCH THE DEBATE COUP NEVER AGAIN TURN OFF GLOBO (translated)

„Iš esmės mes pasakėme: klausykite, mes esame gynybinis aljansas ir liaukitės grasinti branduoliniu ginklu“NATO generalinis sekretorius Markas Rutte pareiškė, kad, nepaisant naujausių Rusijos branduolinių grasinimų, tiesioginės grėsmės Aljansui nėra, o grėsmės lygis, palyginti su pastarosiomis savaitėmis ir mėnesiais, nepasikeitė. #Rusija #NATO #ginkluotaskonfliktas

🚨 BOMB! VORCARO ORGANIZED A LUXURY LUNCH FOR MORAES. Beluga caviar, wagyu, truffle, and foie gras. Wines from the banker’s cellar, with labels exceeding R$ 50 thousand per bottle. Everything for the "most important guest". In a luxury hotel in Campos do Jordão. The messages are on Vorcaro's cellphone. He took care of every detail and gave an order to the staff: "avoid mentioning my name... to not embarrass". Weeks later, the Master signed a contract worth R$ 131 million with the office of Moraes' wife. WE WILL GET YOU OUT OF THERE, THE TIME IS COMING MORAES (translated)

"Heinen, are you letting your returns disappear? Despite the cheers about #box3, there are ugly surprises lurking. The cabinet is proposing an undue tax increase in box 3 for 2027. For example: With a fortune of €80,000, you will pay 198% (!) more tax in 2027. Here's how it works:" (translated)

Nueva información de GTA 6 revelada por Game Informer 🔥🔥 ▫️ Por primera vez en un videojuego de Rockstar Games habrá huracanes. El viento levantará escombros, moverá el cabello, generará ondas sobre el agua y doblará la vegetación de los pantanos. ▫️ La fauna será mucho más completa que en Red Dead Redemption 2, con más de 170 especies. ▫️ Habrá más de 60 especies de aves, más de 30 mamíferos, numerosos peces, reptiles, pelícanos y muchas otras especies. ▫️ Leonida contará con seis grandes distritos: Vice City, las Llaves de Leonida, Grassrivers, Puerto Gellhorn, Ambrosia y el Parque Nacional Monte Kalaga. ▫️ Vice City estará inspirada en Miami, con arquitectura art déco, playas, un enorme puerto de cruceros y tráfico intenso que complicará las persecuciones policiales. ▫️ Grassrivers será el equivalente a los Everglades: una enorme región pantanosa repleta de fauna peligrosa y habitantes rurales potencialmente armados. ▫️ Leonida será el mapa más grande en la historia de Rockstar, con aproximadamente el doble del tamaño de GTA V. ▫️ Aaron Garbut asegura que el mundo también será mucho más denso, detallado e interactivo, con especial atención a tejados, callejones e interiores para que cada edificio se sienta más real. ▫️ Los habitantes de Leonida variarán en altura, complexión, musculatura, distribución de grasa, tono y características de la piel. ▫️ También habrá una mayor variedad de peinados, vello corporal y tatuajes diseñados para representar de forma más auténtica las distintas comunidades del estado. ▫️ Entre las actividades confirmadas estarán el billar, gimnasio, kayak, minigolf, buceo y la posibilidad de visitar zoológicos en pareja. #GTA6 #RockstarGames #Videojuegos

With @UNHCRUkraine in Sloviansk, Kramatorsk & Oleksandrivka, where russia’s war against homes, schools, kindergartens, clinics, water, power — even evacuation points — is most intense. Yet against all odds, people continue to work, trim grass, drill wells & prepare for winter. https://t.co/RjcDR76KyB #Ukraine #StandWithUkraine #HumanitarianAid #UA #RU

📊 Pesquisa BTG/NEXUS — PRESIDENTE NACIONAL 🗓️ 18–20 de setembro → 25–27 de setembro ✅ 1º TURNO — ESTIMULADA — VOTOS TOTAIS 🔴 Lula (PT): 42% (+2%) 🔵 Flávio Bolsonaro (PL): 37% (=) 🟢 Augusto Cury (Avante): 5% (-1%) ⚪ Ronaldo Caiado (PSD): 5% (=) 🟡 Renan Santos (Missão): 4% (+1%) 🟠 Romeu Zema (Novo): 1% (=) 🟣 Samara Martins (UP): 1% (=) ⚫ Rui Costa Pimenta (PCO): 0% (=) ⚫ Hertz Dias (PSTU): 0% (=) ⚫ Edmilson Costa (PCB): 0% (=) ⚫ Veterinário Wilson Grassi (Democrata): 0% (=) ⚫ Clariana Barão (DC): 0% (=) ⚫ Leonardo Avalanche (PRTB): 0% — (não constava na rodada anterior) ⚪ Nenhum/branco/nulo: 3% (-1%) ⚪ NS/NR: 2% (=) #Pesquisa #Eleições2023 #Brasil

📊 Pesquisa BTG/NEXUS — PRESIDENTE NACIONAL 🗓️ 18–20 de setembro → 25–27 de setembro ✅ 1º TURNO — ESTIMULADA — VOTOS VÁLIDOS 🔴 Lula (PT): 44% (+1%) 🔵 Flávio Bolsonaro (PL): 39% (-1%) 🟢 Augusto Cury (Avante): 5% (-1%) ⚪ Ronaldo Caiado (PSD): 5% (=) 🟡 Renan Santos (Missão): 4% (+1%) 🟠 Romeu Zema (Novo): 1% (=) 🟣 Samara Martins (UP): 1% (=) ⚫ Rui Costa Pimenta (PCO): 0% (=) ⚫ Hertz Dias (PSTU): 0% (=) ⚫ Edmilson Costa (PCB): 0% (=) ⚫ Veterinário Wilson Grassi (Democrata): 0% (=) ⚫ Clariana Barão (DC): 0% (=) ⚫ Leonardo Avalanche (PRTB): 0% (não constava na rodada anterior) #Pesquisa #Eleições2023 #Brasil

In der ukrainischen Stadt Oleschky sind die Menschen aufgrund der blockierenden Maßnahmen Russlands gezwungen, verbotene Nahrungsmittel wie Gras und Hunde zu essen, während sie mit dramatischem Hunger und einem Mangel an Lebensmitteln und medizinischer Versorgung kämpfen. #Oleschky #Hungerkrise #UkrainischerKrieg

No victims in any category below have been double-counted. Outside Peru, no war-related deaths or imprisonments have been included. Communism vs. Villagers 400,000 dead — Cambodian rural (1) 19.5 million dead — Chinese peasants (2) 250,000 dead — Ethiopian nomads (3) 5 million dead — Soviet peasants (4) 340,000 dead — Tibetan rural (5) Communism vs. Landowners 3 million dead — Chinese landowners (6) 100,000 dead — Vietnamese landowners (8) Note: Soviet kulaks are counted among the villagers. Communism vs. Religion 47,000 dead — Cambodian Buddhists (9) 13,000 imprisoned — Czech priests / religious (10) 7,000 imprisoned — Mozambican Jehovah’s Witnesses (11) 100,000 imprisoned — North Korean Christians (12) 2,100 imprisoned — Polish priests & Jehovah’s Witnesses (13) 200,000 dead — Soviet clergy (15) 2,000 dead — Tibetan monks & pilgrims (18) 400 dead — Romanian Christians (14) Moreover, Christians suffered the following in Romanian prison: In a “baptism of immersion,” inmates’ heads were plunged into buckets of urine and feces, while guards chanted baptismal rites. Near the point of drowning the Christian’s head was let up for air and then plunged back into the sewage (65). Communism vs. Cossacks 400,000 dead or deported ethnics (20) Photo: Bolshevik instructions on “the need to do away with the cossacks.” (21) “Order no.7: In the event of an unauthorized exit of a registered [Cossack] family, the family shall be shot.” “Order no. 8: This execution shall be carried out among every family member.” “Order no. 9: All property of the executed [Cossack] shall be confiscated and given to the poor.” Communism vs. Native Americans 6,000 dead — Ashaninka (Peru/luminoso-22) 5,000 imprisoned — Ashaninka (Peru/luminoso-22) 10,000 forcibly relocated — Ashaninka (Peru/luminoso-22) 35 destroyed — Ashaninka communities (Peru/luminoso-22) 35,000 imprisoned or forcibly relocated — Nicaraguan tribesmen (Sandinistas-23) Communism vs. Unclassified Dissidents* 5,000 dead — Albanian dissidents (24) 10,000 dead — Angolan dissidents (25) 29,000 dead — Bulgarian dissidents (26) 1 million dead — Cambodian dissidents (27) 43 million dead — Chinese dissidents (28) 16,000 dead — Cuban dissidents (29) Moreover, in Cuba’s concentration camps, inmates faced the following “punishments.” They were forced to “cut grass with their teeth,” endure “mock executions,” live in iron cages “1 meter wide, 1.8 meters high,” sit for hours in toilet ditches, withstand shock treatment, die by the hundreds from starvation and lack of medical attention (30). 44,000 dead — East German dissidents (31) 10,000 dead — Ethiopian dissidents (32) 50,000 dead — Hungarian dissidents (33) 3,000 dead — Nicaraguan dissidents (34) Moreover, 11,000 Nicaraguans were tortured at the hands of the Sandinistas. This included their being skinned alive & then executed; drawn & quartered; forced to watch wives and daughters sexually assaulted; caged in cubicles less than a square meter; “punished” via electric shock; deprived food and water (35). 1.6 million dead — North Korean dissidents (36) 21,857 dead — Polish dissidents (37) 120,000 dead — Romanian dissidents (38) 8 million dead — Soviet dissidents (39) 425,000 dead — Tibetan dissidents (40) Moreover, Tibetans suffered the following atrocities at the hands of the Chinese. They faced: crucifixion drowning beheading boiling alive burying alive mutilation (41) Communism vs. Gay Rights 25,000 imprisoned — Cuban gays and other “deviants” (42) 500 dead — Peruvian gays, bisexuals, and transgendered (43) 11,000 arrested — Polish gays (44) 100,000s imprisoned — Soviet gays in slave labor camps (45) Moreover, Chinese gays were targeted for persecution although numbers are impossible to quantify (46). Communism vs. Collective Laborers 160 dead — East German strikers (47) demonstrators killed after protesting a 10% increase in work quotas. 110 dead — Nicaraguan strikers executed by the Sandinistas after demanding back pay (48). 31 dead — Novocherkassk strikers (Kruschev) 24 killed on the spot; 7 later executed; over 100 workers arrested. (49) 51 dead — Peruvian union leaders (50) 106 dead — Polish strikers Poznan demonstrators killed after protesting working conditions & pay issues; others killed in later strikes; thousands attacked by military (51). 3,000 dead — Soviet strikers (Lenin / Trotsky) some shot / others, as N. Werth describes, “loaded onto barges and then thrown by the hundreds into the Volga with stones around their necks” (52). Moreover; Massive factory protests in China — strikers beaten back by 30,000 red soldiers after disputing wages (53). Striking outlawed in Cuba (54). Organizers sentenced to as many as 26 years in prison (55).

The Deconstructionists and the Preservers The average person assumes that everyone wants the same things and merely disagrees about how to achieve them. But the social fracture we are living through is deeper: people no longer agree on what they want at all. Consider the conflicts dominating the news—crime, the border, online speech, and who raises children. Beneath each is a question rarely acknowledged: Does society corrupt human beings, or does it elevate them above their animal nature? If social constructs are oppressive, then every institution becomes suspect. Hierarchy, cultural norms, the family, and the nation appear to be cages designed to restrain a free creature. The only honest response, in this view, is to tear them down. The belief that society corrupts the individual is not fringe doctrine. It is the creed of much of the elite class governing the West. From Rousseau, who argued that man was born free until society placed him in chains, through Marx, who identified those chains as capital and class, to the postmodernists, who reduced institutions to masks for power, the thread remains unbroken. It is the philosophy of universities, the cultural industry, and the bureaucrats shaped by both. Opposing it is the older conviction of Hobbes and Hegel: that a person stripped of structure is not free, but frightened and dangerous, and that order is what improves him. Hobbes saw that without order, life becomes a war of all against all. Hegel believed that people become fully themselves through family, community, and the rational state. The divide, then, is not simply left against right. It is the deconstructionists against the preservers. The irony the demolishers never grasp is that freedom does not remain after every structure is cleared away. It requires personal responsibility as a cultural habit. When order is destroyed in the name of liberty, society begins to collapse. Something must bear the weight, and the state eventually fills the void—without moving gently. Liberty pursued through demolition produces, with grim reliability, the conditions of slavery. The deconstructionist imagines himself a liberator striking mankind’s chains. In truth, he is the architect of the cage.