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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

DN's Emma Bouvin continues to write editorial texts disguised as news journalism – in the same spirit as her father Peter Löfgren, the SVT reporter whose many years of fixation on Israel left clear traces in public service Middle East coverage. Now she not only relativizes the Israeli passengers' intervention against a suspected terrorist act. She also perpetuates the conspiracy theory that Israelis would be “indoctrinated” with the idea that people in Gaza and the West Bank are trained to want to kill Jews. (translated)

L'opposant russe en exil et ancien champion d'échecs Garry Kasparov a été prévenu par les services de sécurité lituaniens et américains que sa vie et celle de son soutien Ivan Tyutrin étaient "en danger", affirme-t-il jeudi dans un message sur les réseaux sociaux. #GuerreEnUkraine #Kiev #DronesRussie

Jordan Fake News Bardella, the information has been denied by the rectorate. No support for high school students facing the lack of teachers, for high schools that are collapsing. Of course, you want to cut public services like Macron and as soon as the police violently attack people, you applaud. (translated)

Last night on KONTERRA with Loukia Gkatsou: The government's measures leave the energy cartel and servicers untouched, which is why they are not addressing either profiteering or the plundering of housing. The solution is a cap on the retail price of electricity, abolition of the (translated)

Alert: the macronists want to charge students for registration in BTS and preparatory classes. Here are the first announcements from Lecornu, during the mobilization of high school students, to cut 54 billion from our public services. We will prevent it: censorship. (translated)

🚨 39 % renoncent aux soins psy : le paradoxe des agents publics 📒 Baromètre de la santé mentale au travail des agents de la fonction publique territoriale — Édition 2026 ✍️ Moodwork, idealCO et MNFCT (Mutuelle nationale des fonctionnaires des collectivités territoriales, partenaire de la Macif) - septembre 2026 (enquête de mai à juillet 2026 ; 3e édition après 2024 et 2025) Capsules Audio de Pratiques en Santé 🎙️🎥 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI8TIvpkKbA 🔍💡 Santé mentale des agents territoriaux : 45 % se disent épuisés chaque semaine, 39 % ont déjà renoncé à des soins psy, et seuls 15 % se sentent soutenus par leur collectivité. 🧭 Un baromètre pour cibler les actions là où les besoins sont les plus forts. Analyse de Pratiques en Santé et lien vers la source ℹ️➕ https://www.pratiquesensante.com/blog/pratiques-15/barometre-de-la-sante-mentale-au-travail-des-agents-de-la-fonction-publique-territoriale-edition-2026-6224 📌Près d'un agent territorial sur deux se dit épuisé chaque semaine, et le chiffre augmente depuis 2025. Or ces agents sont souvent les partenaires directs des actions de prévention : accueil social, écoles, PMI, services techniques, centres sociaux. Ce baromètre donne des chiffres récents pour objectiver une situation que beaucoup ressentent. Il permet aussi de repérer les publics les plus exposés (catégorie C, encadrants, moins de 35 ans pour l'accès aux soins). Il peut servir à préparer un diagnostic, un dialogue social ou un projet de santé mentale au travail, y compris pour sa propre équipe. 🇬🇧: Barometer of mental health at work for public service agents — Edition 2026 - https://www.pratiquesensante.com/en/blog/practices-15/barometer-of-mental-health-at-work-for-public-service-agents-edition-2026-6224 #️⃣ #pratiquesensante #SantéMentaleAuTravail #FonctionPubliqueTerritoriale #RisquesPsychosociaux #QVCT #Prévention #RenoncementAuxSoins #SensAuTravail

In an extremely interesting post, @paul_amar2 recalls article L. 212-1 of the internal security code. This text allows for the dissolution, by decree in the Council of Ministers, of an association or grouping whose actions jeopardize the republican form of government, provoke violence, or incite hatred. Case law has confirmed that a political party is not exempt from this. For the journalist, La France insoumise fits well within this framework. Personally, I wonder, why such leniency from the executive? Can LFI be of service? Chaos would benefit the Insoumis less than those who fear the verdict of the ballots. (translated)