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As a barrage of missiles rained down on two Iraqi bases housing thousands of U.S. troops, a stealthier form of warfare was striking on another front: Online information operations linked to the Iranian regime were blastingout messages to swaypublic opinion in Tehran and abroad.

Campaigns on Instagram, Twitter and elsewhere tapped into an outpouring of grief and rage at the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. Aviolent image of President Trumps head being ripped from his body. A photo of a child running among flag-draped caskets with the words: Prepare the coffins.Social media posts urging retaliation bore hashtags like#HardRevenge and #DeathToAmerica.

These shadowyoperations which escalated with the hostilitiesbetween Iran and the United States have not yet been turned on full blast, security experts say.

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We are seeing some aspects of Irans information operations apparatus being used, but theres so much more capacity it has, says Lee Foster, senior manager of information operations analysis at security firm FireEye. Its important to remember that its early days. Both sides here are trying to feel out what the next steps are. So its entirely plausible that we could see more activity of this nature going forward."

Online information warfare has been part of Tehrans arsenal for about a decade as a covertalternative to military confrontation. State-sponsored campaigns use social media to spread pro-Iranian talking points in the Middle East and in the west.

Where it would be extremely difficult or escalatory for Iran to continue to carry out missile strikes at various U.S. assets, it is a lot easier and it flies way more under the radar to carry out influence operations, says Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab. We should have our guard up even if the situation deescalates.

Iran has engaged in influence operations since the Islamic Revolution. These operations gravitated online as Tehran looked to harness the growing power of social media. It shutoff Twitter during anti-government protests in 2009, and in recent years amplifiedpro-Iranian propaganda critical of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia through a shadowy network of phony online personas and a flurry of fake articles on websites designed to look like real news outlets.

Soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division board a bus to be taken to a flight line as they deploy to the Middle East on Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020 at Fort Bragg, N.C.(Photo: Melissa Sue Gerrits, The Fayetteville Observer via AP)

Iran is a persistent, sophisticated and well-resourced actor which has been active in the online disinformation space for years, saysBen Nimmo, director of investigations for social media monitoring company Graphika.

In 2018, Iran was caught for the first time running a stealthy online disinformation campaign targeting the U.S. Facebook, Google and Twitter shuttered hundreds of accounts and channels set up by people with ties to Iranian state media.

Social media accounts with fake names tried to infiltrate liberal groups, such as supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the U.S. andScottish separatists in the U.K., a USA TODAY review of the social media posts showed.

They then tapped into resentment on such heated topics as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, immigration and Britain's vote to leave the European Union, pushing pro-Iranian messages alongside anti-Trump messages or posts backing Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britains opposition Labour Party.

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The objective was different from Russias campaignto sow discord and chaos during and after the 2016 presidential election. Iran was attemptingto hijack the political conversation to promote pro-Iranian talking points on Israel, Saudi Arabia and other interests around the globe, appealing to people who are more inclined to consider America to be a bad actor on the world stage, Brookie says. At the time Iran denied any involvement.

The revelation underscored the growing scale and frequency of disinformation operations by nation states threatening the United States.

President Donald Trump addresses the nation from the White House on the ballistic missile strike that Iran launched against Iraqi air bases housing U.S. troops, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020, in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and military leaders, look on.(Photo: Alex Brandon, AP)

With intensifying U.S. pressure and international sanctions, Iran has shown a growing willingness to carry out these online influence campaigns. More campaigns originating from Iran were discovered last year, security experts say.

Iran has also targeted American officials.In February, Iranian accounts carried out a spam attack on Secretary of State Mike Pompeos Instagram page to protest his post on the unrest in Venezuela at the time and urge support for the Nicols Maduro regime, the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab says.

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Still, genuine grassroots fervor can be confused withcoordinatedinauthentic state-sponsored propaganda on social media, Nimmo says.

Following the Jan. 2 American strike that killed Soleimani, social media saw a flood of reaction, much of it coming from real people. But some accounts on Instagram and Twitter targeting the U.S. government showed signs of coordinated and inauthentic behavior intendedto propel the online conversation.

Whenever there's a security escalation, you tend to see an escalation in rhetoric," Nimmo says. "We've already seen this from both sides, for example with both national leaders issuing threats, and we've seen apparent supporters of both sides joining in with what looks like organic engagement."

The conflict in the real world plays out online, too.

It's important to remember that security escalations can drive genuine traffic too," Nimmo said. "Real people get angry about them and start posting in a way they might not have done before."

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Facebook information warfare: Inside Iran's shadowy operations to target you on social media - USA TODAY

AIN AL-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) American troops were informed of an impending missile barrage hours before their air base in Iraq was struck by Iran, U.S. military officials said Monday, days after the attack that marked a major escalation between the longtime foes.

At 11 p.m. on Jan. 7, U.S. Lt. Col. Antoinette Chase gave the order for American troops at Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq, to go on lockdown. Military movements froze as her team, responsible for emergency response at the base, sent out alerts about the threat. At 11:30 p.m., she gave the order to take cover in bunkers.

The first strike landed sometime after 1:35 a.m. on Jan. 8 and the barrage continued for nearly two hours. Half way through the attack, Chase learned the missiles were being launched from Iran.

No American soldiers were killed or wounded, the U.S. has said, although several troops were treated for concussions from the blast and are being assessed, said Col. Myles Caggins, a spokesman at the base for the U.S. coalition fighting the Islamic State group.

The reason why we pushed it at 2330 is because at that point in time all indications pointed to something coming, she told reporters touring the base. Worst case scenario we were told was its probably going to be a missile attack. So we were informed of that.

The Iranian attack was in retaliation for the U.S. drone strike near Baghdad airport that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3.

An Associated Press crew touring the Ain al-Asad base saw large craters and damaged military trailers. Forklifts lifted rubble and loaded it onto trucks from an area the size of a football stadium. U.S. soldiers inspected portable housing units destroyed in the attack.

The sprawling complex in western Anbar province is about 180 kilometers (110 miles) west of Baghdad and is shared with the Iraqi military. It houses about 1,500 members of the U.S. military and the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State militant group.

The Iranian attack the most direct assault on America since the 1979 seizing of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran raised fears of a wider conflict although both sides have since indicated that they wont seek further retaliation, at least in the short term.

There were more than 10 large missiles fired and the impact hit several areas along the airfield, Caggins said. At least 15-30 minutes passed between successive strikes, Chase said.

The attack destroyed facilities that house dozens of soldiers and one missile hit near an airstrip where six drones were parked but caused no damage, he said.

The base received a notification that the missiles were on their way, thanks to early warning systems, Caggins said, and troops were moved out of harms way. He described soldiers who lived through the attack as warriors.

Because of the long intervals between barrages, a few curious soldiers peered out to inspect the damage.

After the first boom, I was confused and so I stuck my head out to see what it was, said Capt. Jeffrey Hansen, 30, from North Carolina. The second boom blew a bunch of debris on my face.

The Ain al-Asad air base was first used by American forces after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. Facilities at the base were split with Iraqi forces when U.S. troops returned in 2014 leading a multi-national coalition to defeat IS militants.

President Donald Trump went to the air base in December 2018, making his first presidential visit to troops in the region. Vice President Mike Pence has also visited.

On Monday, most soldiers walked around the base without any body armor, amid large tents and street signs written mostly in English. The base was ringed by large concrete barriers blackened by the bombardment.

Chase said troops had conducted a drill the week before the attack and that they had received some warnings earlier in the day that had prompted them to move troops around the base.

I had zero casualties and everybody is alive to tell the tale. So as far as Im concerned, I couldnt be happier and I couldnt be prouder of the actions that the soldiers and the coalition forces took that night, she added.

____

This corrects dates of warning and attack to Jan. 7 and Jan. 8 respectively, not Jan. 6 and Jan. 7.

Continued here:
US troops in Iraq got warning hours before Iranian attack - The Associated Press

Tom Nichols: Irans smart strategy

A few years in, the Obama administration took a major gamble. Seeing promise in less hostile relations with Iran, Obama decided to cut a deal with the mullahs. The nuclear deal of 2015 dismantled the regime of U.N. sanctions that had all but ruined the Iranian economy, in exchange for temporary limits on the key facilities of Irans nuclear weapons program and vague commitments never to develop nuclear weapons.

At the White House press conference where he unveiled the deal, Obama was asked whether it would allow the U.S. to more forcefully counter Iran's destabilizing actions in the region, quite aside from the nuclear question. In other words, would the deal buttress or undermine the containment of Iran? Among the points Obama made in response was this: It'll be a lot easier for us to check Iran's nefarious activities, to push back against the other areas where they operate contrary to our interests or our allies interests if they don't have the bomb.

There were some problems with this answer. Just a few years earlier, Obama had withdrawn U.S. forces from Iraq, in effect delivering Americas Iraqi allies to Iran on a silver platter. Iran would now have a land bridge all the way across Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the Israeli border, and could hardly be expected not to take advantage it. Moreover, while it was no doubt true that dealing with Iran would be less difficult if it didnt have the bomb, the nuclear deal didnt exactly solve that problem, because it left Iran with all the basic elements of both a plutonium- and uranium-pathway serial production capability for nuclear warheads, which it could activate in a matter of months. Third, the deal itself was seen by many in Tehran as a surrender on Americas part, not entirely without justice, considering the U.S. had caved on the key demands in U.N. Security Council resolutions going back nearly a decade. For all these reasons, Obamas well-wishes notwithstanding, the baseline presumption had to be that Iran would feel emboldened, and it would be more, not less, difficult to deal with Irans other nefarious activities.

And so it proved. In Iraq, Iranian support for Shiite militias translated into influence over the Iraqi government itself. In Syria, Obama acquiesced to Russias and Irans entry into the civil war, making Assads eventual victory a foregone conclusion. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has all but completed its takeover of the state. The rise of ISIS brought the U.S. back to Iraq after a brief interregnum, but under a dispensation which left Iran free to continue its subjugation of Iraq. As such, the U.S. arguably served as Irans proxy air force in Irans fight against ISIS, further helping to cement Irans regional hegemony.

Though it was surely not his intention, Obamas strategy in many ways boiled down to appeasement. When President Trump came to office, Republicans saw an opportunity to undo the hated deal. They put relentless pressure on the president to withdraw from it, which he eventually did. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a return to withering sanctions, tied to maximalist demands that exceeded even those of the Bush administration.

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Obama Should Never Have Appeased Iran - The Atlantic

As the U.S. looks to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, recent tensions coupled with Irans history of meddling in the country could jeopardize talks between the U.S. and the Taliban to end the 18-year long conflict.

U.S. military intelligence assessments dating back to 2010 suggest Irans elite paramilitary unit, the Quds Force, has track record of providing training and lethal arms to the Taliban. The list includes portable shoulder-fired air-defense systems known as MANPADS.

While the level of that support from Tehran does not appear to be a game changer on the battlefield, the recent succession of the former head of Irans Quds Force branch in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, to be the top commander of the elite Iranian unit could amplify Irans destabilization efforts in Afghanistan.

Ghaani was chosen by Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to lead the Quds force following a Jan. 2 airstrike by the U.S. that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Phillip Smyth, a research fellow with the Washington Institute, told Military Times that the new Quds Force commander could be a spoiler for peace prospects in Afghanistan.

Following Soleimanis killing, Iran is looking to send a signal to say we are going to look eastward," Smyth said.

Flanked by flags of its various proxy forces, a recent IRGC press conference included the banners of Fatemiyoun Division, an Iran-backed Afghan Shia group fighting in Syria, and the emblem for Liwa Zainebiyoun a Shia Pakistani Iran proxy.

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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has also for years trained and recruited from Afghanistans Shia Hazara population for use in its nebulous network of militant and proxy forces across the region.

Analysts and national security experts have expressed concern over the Taliban peace talks following the U.S. strike that killed Soleimani, and Irans retaliatory ballistic missile strike against U.S. forces at two air bases in Iraq.

But Irans sway over the Taliban is minimal. A Taliban spokesman told Voice of America that he did not expect recent tensions between Tehran and Washington to impact the negotiations.

The developments will not have negative impact on the peace process because the (U.S.-Taliban) peace agreement is finalized and only remains to be signed (by the two sides), Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Talibans negotiating team, told VOA.

In January, Reuters reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran without providing evidence of undermining U.S. talks with the Taliban.

The Talibans entanglement in Irans dirty work will only harm the Afghanistan peace process," Pompeo said, according to Reuters.

Iran has provided military aid to the Taliban, but U.S. intelligence reports, obtained by Military Times through a government records request, displays mixed reviews on the level and severity of that aid.

The majority of the intelligence reports and assessments spanned 2010 to 2012, at a time when the U.S. had nearly 100,000 troops on the ground. The reports provide a glimpse into Irans shadowy dealings with the Taliban a militant group that has long been at odds with Tehran.

Irans support to the Taliban is minimal, often aimed at harassing coalition forces and as an effort to stymie progress in Afghanistan. But the underlying relationship between Tehran and the Taliban is not enough to sway the balance of power in Afghanistan in favor of the militants.

Iranian support to the Taliban is tempered by their realization that Taliban control of Afghanistan is not in Irans best long term interest due to a history of ideological differences. Instead, lethal aid and training are used as a balancing force to counteract increased Western influence, a 2012 U.S. military intelligence assessment reads.

U.S. military intelligence assessments detailed that Irans Quds Force shelled out cash for every American soldier killed or for every U.S. military vehicle destroyed.

A report dated Oct. 15, 2010, from the Theater Intelligence Group based out of Bagram Air Base, said that Irans Quds Force was paying $1,000 for every U.S. soldier killed and $6,000 for American vehicles destroyed.

The report also highlighted that Iran was funneling small arms and SA-7 shoulder fired air-defense systems to the Taliban through a former Afghan security official.

In some instances, IRGC officials helped transport groups of 10 to 20 Taliban fighters to various locations in Iran for training on MANPADS, according to an Oct. 2010 report.

The Quds Force usually asks the Taliban commanders to send their best fighters for the training, likely due to the more advanced training involved in learning MANPADS systems or possibly to allow these fighters to become future trainers of other Taliban fighters inside Afghanistan, the Oct. 2010 report reads.

Many of the assessments appeared to conclude that Irans lethal aid was limited in nature to prevent a Taliban return to power, but also an effort by Tehran to not ratchet up tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

Reports also were contradictory at times. Some reports said Iran was directly supplying the highly lethal aid such as MANPADS and deadly explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs. Other reports suggested such deadly aid was notional and that Iran had yet to provide the support.

However, Iran has not provided more dangerous lethal aid, such as MANPADS and Explosively Formed Projectile (EFP). The introduction of this type of lethal aid would most likely signify an increase in hostilities between Iran and the United States, reads a Feb. 2012 report from Regional Command Southwest.

EFPs in Iraq and Afghanistan have a bloody and infamous track record.

A U.S. State Department report estimated that Irans IRGC was responsible for 17 percent of all deaths of U.S. personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 roughly 603 casualties. Many of those casualties were the result of EFPs that ripped through U.S. armored vehicles.

An intelligence briefing on Iranian facilitation in Afghanistan noted that between April 2007 and November 2009, four shipments of weapons and explosives of Iranian origin were interdicted that included EFPs, MANPADs.

An Aug. 2009 indirect fire attack against Camp Stone, located in Herat, Afghanistan, used 107 mm rockets that included lot numbers and dates of a previously interdicted Iranian weapons shipment, the intelligence brief said.

The brief explained that the IRGC supplied the Taliban with weapons and personnel through the western border region between Iran and Afghanistan, mostly prominently near the Iranian cities of Zabol and Zahedan.

Although CFs [coalition forces] have interdicted IRGC-QF shipments in the past, the infrequency of shipments makes interdiction operations difficult , yielding limited results, the brief reads.

Although Iranian weaponry has been used against CFs multiple times, the attacks cannot be linked back to Iranian transfer of aid, the brief stated.

The extent of Irans support of MANPADS training and systems to the Taliban is unknown. Officials from Resolute Support and the Pentagon did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

A number of reports suggested Iran had the capability to provide MANPADS, but actual material support of the systems either was so infrequent or the systems were in such disrepair that the threat was minimal.

Also in August, a Farah-based Taliban commander claimed to be in possession of six MANPADS and claimed the systems as well as the training were provided by Iran, an Oct. 2010 report reads.

The portable air-defense systems seemed to be lacking the trigger assembly and possibly the battery pack which is consistent with reporting from...previous recoveries in Afghanistan, the Oct. 2010 report said.

The U.S. and Taliban are currently amid talks to end the 18-year war and bring American troops home.

The U.S. has been pushing the Taliban for a cease-fire to jump start intra-Afghan negotiations.

The Taliban has thus far refused even a temporary cease-fire, and has stuck to its offer of a reduction of violence across the country.

Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, tweeted Jan. 12 that the Afghan government wants a cease-fire before the start of inter-Afghan negotiations.

The Afghan governments plan to launch peace talks is to secure a ceasefire. Reducing violence does not have an exact military, legal or practical meaning, Sediqqi tweeted.

Our goal of a cease-fire is like the cease-fire that was established two years ago during Eid in the country and had a clear definition, he said.

The Taliban agreed to a three-day cease-fire in June 2019 over the Eid holiday.

There are roughly 13,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

President Donald Trump and the Pentagon are considering reducing the American footprint in the country to 8,600 troops.

The rest is here:
Iran's support to the Taliban, which has included MANPADS and a bounty on US troops, could be a spoiler for peace in Afghanistan - Military Times

A week after millions of Iranians flooded the streets following the death of one of the country's top generals, Qassem Soleimani, a contrasting symbolic image played out in Tehran on Sunday.

Crowds of people outside Beheshti University refused to trample over giant U.S. and Israeli flags that had been painted on the ground, according to video filmed at the scene that has been verified by NBC News.

This appeared to be a symbolic gesture, given that walking on, or burning, these flags has been a feature of previous demonstrations.

Encouraging marchers to do the same may have been why they were painted in the street outside the university. And declining to comply was likely one way for the protesters to send a message to the government, according to H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London.

"Iranian protesters are likely very aware that the Iranian regime uses legitimate grievances against the United States and Israel to deflect criticism," said Hellyer, who is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.

"By not stepping on their flags, they're unlikely to be showing support for the U.S. and Israel, but more just sending a message to the regime that they aren't interested in deflection," he said.

In Tehran and elsewhere, anger on the streets has been palpable. The country is in the midst of three days of angry demonstrations after the government admitted it accidentally shot down a Ukrainian International Airlines passenger jet during a military confrontation with the United States.

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After three days of denials, the Iranian government admitted Saturday that one of its missiles had downed the plane and killed all 176 people on board, mostly Iranians. The country had just fired missiles at U.S. forces in neighboring Iraq in retaliation for a drone strike directed by President Donald Trump that killed Soleimani.

Although this admission of guilt by the government appeared to be the trigger for the protests, they have since expanded into a wider call for democratic reforms and a critique of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and others.

Some of the protesters have called for Khamenei to stand down, and there have been clashes between demonstrators and security forces. One video appeared to show the aftermath of a woman being shot in Tehran, although police have denied firing at the crowds over the weekend.

Another piece of footage showed a commemorative roadside banner of Soleimani that had been set alight, and elsewhere protesters were seen ripping down and stomping on posters of the dead general.

"Our protests were about all of the irresponsibility of the regime, not just the plane. The plane was the trigger of this protest," said Elhan, 29, one of those who took to the streets in Tehran.

She asked not to publish her last name for fear of reprisals, telling NBC News by phone Monday that the demonstrators "just want a true democracy we are so angry and sad."

It's not the first time that Iranians have made a point about refusing to disrespect the U.S. and Israeli flags. In 2016, a prominent professor, Sadegh Zibakalam, went to great lengths to avoid this shimmying along an adjacent railing rather than walking on the ground on which they had been painted.

Students in particular have employed other tactics over the years to show that they are unwilling to toe the government's line.

"When regime representatives shout 'death to America! death to Israel!' over a loudspeaker, the students chant back 'death to Russia! death to China!' said Gissou Nia, a human rights lawyer and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. "It's not because the students actually want death to those nations, it's just to show the world that they are not aligned with the regime's world view. "

While refusing to walk on flags isn't new, what is significant about this weekend's protesters is that they took to the streets knowing it carried a great risk to their lives, according to Holly Dagres, a nonresident fellow also at the Atlantic Council.

It was just last November when anti-government demonstrations last broke out across Iran, with people initially angry about a hike in gasoline prices but soon calling for other political freedoms.

The U.S.'s special representative for Iran Brian Hook has said that more than 1,000 Iranian citizens may have been killed in the ensuing clashes. Although Iran has disputed any figures on the death toll as "purely speculative" and "highly inaccurate."

"Despite knowing full well that their brothers and sisters were just killed, the protesters this week are willing to take to the streets and sacrifice their lives to have their voices heard against the Iranian government," Dagres said. "That is courageous and impressive."

These demonstrations took place days after a mass outpouring of grief, or at least dissatisfaction, following Soleimani's death. The funeral procession in his hometown of Kerman was so packed that dozens of people died in a stampede.

For many experts, Iran is too often seen in the West as a simple, homogeneous entity that thinks and acts in a unified manner.

Of course the reality is far more nuanced in this nation of 82 million people that features many "diverse political strands," according to Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, a university in London.

Alexander Smith is a senior reporter forNBC News Digital based in London.

Caroline Radnofsky is a London-based reporter for NBC News.

The rest is here:
Iran protests: Crowds in Tehran refuse to walk on U.S. and Israeli flags - NBC News