U.S.Website Exposes Saudi Arabia’s Anti-Iran Campaign

Date: 10 August 2020 - 21:40

News ID: ۸۱۶۰۷

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- Almost immediately after the devastating explosion that nearly destroyed Beirut last week, a number of verified Twitter accounts linked to Saudi Arabia started firing off tweets blaming Hezbollah.
Within 24 hours, the hashtag "Hezbollah’s Ammonia Burns Beirut” was trending, even though authorities and the resistance movement denies any involvement.
Intelligence sources say that the disinformation is being generated and spread by four verified Saudi-linked accounts that have been active in recent years in disinformation campaigns designed to hurt Iranian interests.
Marc Owen Jones, an author and assistant professor of Middle East studies at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar, told The Daily Beast by phone that it is coming primarily from a "core group of influencers” who have verified Twitter accounts, meaning they should have been vetted by the social-media giant. In just 48 hours after the explosion, he found 14,000 interactions involving 9,870 unique accounts spreading lies.
Before the Beirut explosion diverted their attention, many of these disinformation accounts were on a rampage against female journalists who were then targeted and essentially silenced out of fear to respond, he says. "This part of the general trope coming out of Saudi,” he told The Daily Beast. "Obviously the impact of that is to create a vacuum of opposition voices, filled with government mouthpieces.”
He says that as long as they are allowed on social media, "they will flourish without being controlled. They have created an ecosystem.”
The purpose is to justify to the domestic audience in Saudi Arabia that Hezbollah is not to be believed. "With these accusations, the risk is what they may spark,” he says.
Last month, leaked images showed how members of the anti-Iran terrorist Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), which has the United States and Saudi Arabia as its main backers, were conducting a campaign of disinformation against the Islamic Republic.
The images, published by Iran’s Khorasan newspaper, revealed for the first time part of the terrorist group’s secretive social media influence

campaign targeting Farsi, English, and Arabic-speaking users on social media.
Members are "briefed at the start of their workday and start their social media operations at noon. At the end of the day, feedback is reviewed and issues that have to be used to defame the Islamic Republic are examined for the next day,” read the paper.
The MKO, responsible for murdering thousands of Iranian civilians and servicemen since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community.
Washington and Riyadh have, however, been dishing out immense financial and political support to the infamous group. The outfit throws lavish annual conferences in Paris, with senior current or former American and Saudi officials in attendance.
These have included former Saudi spy chief Prince Turki al-Faisal.