Iran Exploiting U.S. News Sites Planting AI Inauthentic News

"Because we're in a very red part of Florida, I usually don' run PeaceVoice columns, but this one struck me as thought-provoking and not a strident attack on Mr. Trump, which would be problematic for much of our readership."

David Adlerstein, publisher, Port St.Joe Star, Florida

 

"We identified almost 100 articles published or syndicated under the operation's bylines across roughly a dozen online outlets around the world."

"These were small to medium outlets, generally focused on international affairs, geopolitics, and events in the Middle East."

"The overall activity appeared consistent with a commercial actor running a for-hire influence campaign but we are unable to identify the particular actor involved."

"AI can give such false-front operations greater scale, efficiency, linguistic fluency, and editorial ability."

"The operators can use these advantages to exploit unsuspecting victims, such as employees or editors, and plant their content in front of audiences who have no idea who was behind it, or what their motivations were."

"The overall activity appeared consistent with a commercial actor running a for-hire influence campaign, but we are unable to identify the particular actor involved."

 "We have shared information on this case with the relevant authorities."

OpenAI

OpenAI says in a new report that it had shut down an influence operation from Iran that used ChatGPT to secretly push anti-American propaganda.

 

"[We have found, and disrupted operations by state actors, including Iran, that used Claude to] build, run, and otherwise facilitate surveillance operations [targeting ethnic minorities and dissidents]."

Anthropic

 

"Artificial intelligence has made it much easier to produce multilingual propaganda, create fake identities, and discredit critics." 

"On the other hand, authoritarian governments often use the fight against misinformation as a pretext for censorship, expanded surveillance, and even pressure to reveal users' identities."

Pooyesh Azizeddin, human rights and technology researcher 

No doubt there were many readers, in doubt regarding President Trump's conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran who found titles such as, “Is America’s Iran Policy Being Privatized? The Jared Kushner Question,” and “The Iran War and the Collapse of Western Moral Credibility”, viewing them as cogent affirmation of their own perceptions. Published in what most readers might consider credible news outlets such as The L.A. Monitor and Middle East Monitor, it is even possible that these outlets had an inkling that what they were publishing was a collaboration between AI chatbots and skillfully deceptive Iranian agents.
 

After all, it is no secret that many users of social media platforms are not individuals at all, but faked personalities with faked backgrounds, used to perpetrate news fraud, and perpetuate a malign entity's version of events to manipulate public opinion and create dissent and chaos in the land of the enemy, targeting the version of events and the very authority of a government's decision-making, to influence its public that in the final analysis the costly business of prosecuting a war will come back to haunt the ordinary citizen, tasked unwillingly to support that war and paying for it under imposed economic duress. 

 

"The bill will follow Americans beyond the fighting itself", read an opinion piece published in a tiny Florida weekly. This warning of the Iran conflict was purportedly composed by an Ervin Hoskins, a named byline in other articles published in other, larger publications including the Daily Kos article critical of the prosecution of the Iran war. Over 3 million followers read Daily Kos and Middle East Monitor on Facebook.  

"It’s remarkable that the Iranians managed to land their content in real media outlets, expanding the potential reach of their campaign."

"We’re witnessing AI enab[ling] foreign adversaries to better hide their hand, building more sophisticated false fronts than they might otherwise be able to in order to launder their content through authentic channels, leveraging those channels for reach."

Jessica Brandt, of the now-shuttered Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Foreign Malign Influence Center from 2023 to 2025

'Journalist' Hoskins has been revealed by  OpenAI to be part of an "influence campaign", its articles generated with the use of the OpenAI chatbot by users based in Iran. An estimated hundred fake articles across some 20 news outlets placed fake articles in a campaign to mislead and cause disruptions in the target countries. Editors failing to detect the artificial creation of some news they publish have finally taken to deleting AI-generated content under fake bylines.

 

A series of articles were removed by Business Insider and Wired last year, appearing under the byline Margaux Blanchard, and believed to be AI-generated. According to OpenAI, use of ChatGPT in political influence campaigns reflects an operation focused on seeding content related to U.S. military action in Iran. Negative impacts on Americans of the war are highlighted in the articles. A total of seven bylines in a series of AI-generated articles by users who sent instructions to the chatbot in Persian have been  outlined by OpenAI. 

 

 

 

"[We published the research to inform regulators, other companies and the public of] how we see threat actors trying to leverage AI, and to shine a light on the vulnerabilities they try to exploit."

ChatGPT 

Needless to say, it will not be only the Islamic Republic engaged in this covert AI-generated false news planted within unsuspecting media sites, but other countries as well, with whom the West has troubled relationships with; China and Russia, for example, as well as Qatar and non-state actors such as the Muslim Brotherhood. If OpenAI admits to be unable to identify the actors involved, turning the issue over to law enforcement is interesting, but they lack the level of expertise it would take to make such critical identification as has stymied Open AI.

Making a Mockery of UN Nuclear Vigilance

"Electing Iran to the committee, just days after its non-compliance was referred to the United Nations Security Council, would be beyond shameful and an embarrassment to the credibility of this body."

"[The decision represents] an affront [to the International Atomic Energy Agency and its critical screening work]." 

U.S. Ambassador Preston Wells Griffith III 

 

"[This objection by Washington is a] childish type of behaviour."

"Nuclear science, technology, expertise and industry have taken deep roots in the country and cannot be eliminated through military actions or assassinations."

"Iran will not surrender."

Behrouz Kamalvandi, deputy head, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran 

Diplomats attend the Board of Governor’s Meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria on September 14, 2026. (Photo by AFP)

 

As insane as it seems to anyone conscientiously following the news in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic of Iran which should rightfully be viewed as a pariah of a nation, dedicated to establishing itself as an  unparalleled power in the Middle East while posing a threat to the greater world order with its stealth infiltration in tandem with that of the Muslim Brotherhood in Western democratic nations with a goal to undermining the values inherent in free and civil society to attain a position of theistic control through jihad by both diplomatic and violent means, has been favoured with a seat on a board overseeing the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

 

This stunning turn of events staggers belief in the function of the United Nations, already under suspicion over its focus and support of the many facets of autocracy within its membership and its entanglement with coercive, exploitive states that persecute their own citizens. Iran is one of those most egregious of states, a theocracy that strangles internal dissent to its restrictive domination of peoples' lives. Its determination to develop nuclear weapons, allied with its technological advances in ballistic missile delivery systems and its formation of, training and financing of terrorist groups make it a dire threat to civilized society.

 

Yet, thanks to the cohesion of Muslim groups and the lobbying efforts of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, alongside the Arab League -- a country whose minority Shiite brand of Islam with its  goal of supremacy over the majority Sunni nations neighbouring it, many of which, in the Persian Gulf, were treated to barrages of missiles and military drones in Iran's conflict with the United States -- supported Iran's candidacy for the position, against the efforts of the United States to deny it that status.

 

Key issues such as nuclear safety and security, concerning the International Atomic Energy Agency, and its spurned efforts by Iran to continue making routine checks at Iranian nuclear sites, leaving it virtually deadlocked, provided the backdrop to its general conference. On Tuesday, Tehran, with support from the very Persian Gulf neighbours which had been the recipients of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards' firing of missiles and drones, helped Iran succeed in claiming a seat on the IAEA committee.

 

Intel Brief: Iran War Solution Nowhere in Sight as U.S. and Iran Remain Entrenched  AP Photo

 

In a secret ballot, 44 countries supported Iran's nomination, as opposed to 35 voting to deny Iran that seat, while 42 nations abstained from the vote. Iran is the only non-Arab (it is Aryan) Muslim state in the Middle East, surrounded by Arab nations and one tiny Jewish nation. What they have in common excluding Israel, is Islamic religious devotion, the sectarian divide aside. Yet despite the threat that Iran poses to its neighbours, having sent thousands of missiles and drones into their territory up to a month earlier, the religious ties that bind won the day for Iran.

 

Iran, in fact, boosted by its Islamic bedfellows, has been appointed to a number of UN-body groups, one dedicated to the protection of  women's rights among them in a wildly inappropriate match. Earlier Iran had been appointed by its fellow Middle Eastern neighbours to the organizing body of the conference itself. In the meanwhile, a country that refuses entry to the very body it now sits on a board for, making the entire exercise one of bemusing sanctimony, leaves the International Atomic Energy Agency unable to fulfill its mandate.

 

The work of the IAEA has been roadblocked in the single country in the world whose secretive, illegal, and dangerous nuclear work poses a direct threat to humanity. Iran wants to possess nuclear weaponry, as a theocracy that believes in the return of the Hidden Mahdi, whose reappearance will mean the end of humanity, when only the faithful in Islam will rise to Paradise, while all others descend to a place of eternal agony as punishment for denying Islam. Their logic is to create conditions of civilizational dysfunction so severe it will hasten the reappearance of a religious symbol of total world destruction. 

 

This shows Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran, on April, 9, 2007. (AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian, File)

 

The 'Unnoticed' Presence of Islamist Terror Groups in Canada

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

"Those allegations [accusations of paramilitary group Kata'ib Hezbollah linked to the IRGC] include two attacks here in Canada; the March 10 shooting at the United States consulate in Toronto and an attack against a Canadian synagogue."

"He [Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi] also allegedly said he was running multiple teams and sought help carrying out further attacks against Jewish and other targets in Canada and the United States." 

"There is no justification for the delay [in placing the group with Canada's terrorist list]."

"Jewish Canadians have watched their synagogues, schools and businesses targeted by shootings, vandalism, firebombings and threats."

"Iranian Canadians who escaped the brutality of the Islamic Republic have faced surveillance, harassment and intimidation from the same regime on Canadian soil." 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Parliamentary opposition

Counter-rally against the Al-Quds day event in Toronto  The Hub

 

The Liberal government of Canada -- under both prime ministers Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney -- has failed to stem the duress under which Canadian Jews have found themselves over the past three years, assailed verbally and physically, threatened and slandered by 'pro-Palestinian' groups in Canadian society led by Palestinian student groups supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran and funded by Qatar. Led by the fundamentalist Islamist focus on jihad. This is a jihad that penetrates Western society through sanctimoniously disingenuous diplomacy that government cannot see through, and the violent jihad of the terrorist battlefield. 

 

While moderate Islamic governments in the Middle East recognize the Muslim Brotherhood and its many offshoots and associates for the threat they represent not only to the West but to their own governance and security, and have taken steps to outlaw it, the West is amenable to its presence, its infiltration through ingratiating itself as a reasonable, moderate representative of Islam to be respected and heeded as a portal to understanding and welcoming the presence of inordinate numbers of Muslims through immigration, refugee intake and migrant presence. 

 

The little-recognized presence of terrorist groups within Western society working to undermine democracy and to silence critics and opponents present the other side of penetrative jihad. These groups, like the members of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps whose presence in Canada affront and concern Canadian Iranians who fled their brutal dictatorial rule in Iran, operate with impunity, with little-to-no 'notice' taken of the menace they represent, by Canada's Liberal government.

 

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pointed out to Canada's Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree through a letter, that American authorities arrested Mohammad Baqer Saad Daewood Al-Saadi, senior commander of Kata'ib Hezbollah, accused of coordinating dozens of attempted and completed terrorist attacks in Europe and North America. 

 

Founded in 2007, Kata'ib Hezbollah, according to the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, has some 7,000 to 10,000 members. They operate primarily in Iraq with a purported presence in Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. They were listed in 2009 as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Mr. Poilievre asked the Minister of Safety to investigate whether operatives for the group have established networks in Canada. To further investigate linkages between Iranian terrorist proxies and organized crime. 

 

Further, that it be disclosed the number of operatives connected to the Iranian regime and its proxies that have been identified, denied entry, investigated, detained or removed from Canada. Previously Minister Anandasangaree, pressed by the opposition why the government had deported only one Iranian official from among the dozens known to be present in Canada, the minister cited a requirement to follow due process, to explain the delay. The reality is that of 24 individuals identified as former IRGC officials, one only has been deported.

 

Iran-Inspired Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto    The Hub

 

The Liberals have failed to enforce Canada’s terrorist laws with the urgency and strength Canadians expect. Parliament did not list terrorist entities merely to put their names on a government website. Canadians expect their laws to be enforced to the fullest extent: terrorist assets frozen and seized, financing networks dismantled, and operatives stopped at the border or removed from the country. Yet Canadians have seen little evidence of serious enforcement against the IRGC and other listed terrorist groups threatening our people, our communities and our national interests. A terrorist listing is only as strong as the action that follows it.

Jewish Canadians have watched their synagogues, schools and businesses targeted by shootings, vandalism, firebombings and threats. Iranian Canadians who escaped the brutality of the Islamic Republic have faced surveillance, harassment and intimidation from the same regime on Canadian soil.

A year-long Global News investigation reported that upwards of 700 Iranian regime-linked associates were operating in Canada and threatening the lives of Canadians. The RCMP subsequently acknowledged receiving reports of foreign interference committed by, or at the direction of, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Canadians deserve to know who these individuals are, how they entered Canada and what your government is doing to remove those who pose a threat.

The IRGC was finally listed as a terrorist entity only after years of pressure from Conservatives. Even now, your government has been unable to tell Canadians how many IRGC operatives have been identified, denied entry or removed from the country.

Listing the parent organization means little if its commanders, proxies, financiers and hired criminals remain free to operate here.

You must therefore:

• Immediately list Kata’ib Hezbollah as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code;
• Investigate whether its members, operatives, facilitators or financial networks are operating in Canada;
• Disclose how many individuals connected to the Iranian regime and its proxies have been identified, denied entry, investigated, detained or removed;
• Investigate and disclose any known links between Iranian terrorist proxies and organized crime in Canada; and
• Explain what action Canadian authorities are taking in response to the alleged Kata’ib Hezbollah-directed attacks in Toronto.

Canada must be a safe haven for Canadians, not for the terrorists, agents and proxies sent to silence the victims of the Iranian regime.

Canadians must be free to worship without fear of gunfire. Iranian Canadians must be free to oppose the regime without facing its enforcers here at home. All Canadians deserve a government that stops terrorists before they attack rather than making excuses after the damage is done.

Conservative Party of Canada  

Protesters and counter-protesters demonstrate by the U.S. Consulate during a rally for Al-Quds Day in Toronto, on Saturday, March 14, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan

 

That Critical Maritime Passage

"Today, we began the process of establishing a new passage and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon."

"Additional U.S. forces, including underwater drones, will join the clearance effort in the coming days."

U.S. Central Command commander Admiral Brad Cooper 

 

"Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz. At some point, we will reach an “ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT” basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, “There may be a mine out there somewhere,” that nobody knows about but them. THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted. I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!"

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

A Navy destroyer in the U.S. Central Command area of operations transits the Strait of Hormuz, April 11, 2026.  Photo: U.S. War Department  

"The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. CENTCOM forces will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports."

"Additional information will be provided to commercial mariners through a formal notice prior to the start of the blockade. All mariners are advised to monitor Notice to Mariners broadcasts and contact U.S. naval forces on bridge-to-bridge channel 16 when operating in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz approaches [per the release]."

Centcom press release  

The U.S. Department of War announced on its website that the USS Frank E. Peterson and the USS Michael Murphy are operating in the Persian Gulf, part of a broader mission to fully clear the Hormuz Strait -- an international sea passage and essential trade corridor -- of sea mines, laid courtesy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Underwater drones, along with  additional American forces, are set to join the clearance project in coming days.

 

US has deployed two Navy guided-missile destroyers to Hormuz (Representational Image)

"We're sweeping the strait. Whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me", said President Trump, even as negotiations between U.S. and Iranian representatives -- alongside a Pakistani mediator -- on a potential ceasefire broke down. The Iranian preconditions were a non-starter, with Israel intent on continuing its strikes on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Iran's continued insistence on its right to continue with its nuclear program, its demand that the U.S. withdraw from bombing Iran and prepare to pay reparations, along with its refusal to put a stop to its support of proxy terrorist groups ensure the talks would go nowhere.

The Islamic Republic's 'red lines' expressed as demand for damage caused by U.S.-Israeli strikes compensation and the release of  Iran's frozen assets, are a reflection of the supreme arrogance of a ruling elite that refuses to acknowledge its position as a bludgeoned theistic hegemon that threatened its neighbours and launched terror attacks by proxy internationally whose beating is its just due for the further threat its nuclear ambition poses to the world at large. 

The country of 93 million people is deserving of relief from the tyranny of a regime that persecutes its own population, using vast oil reserves to fund global terrorism rather than investing in internal infrastructure of benefit to the country's future -- not as a conquering Islamist totalitarian state, but as a responsible government adhering to international norms of human rights standards. That its disregard for and abuse of its female population's right to equal treatment and respect given to their male counterparts is ignored by the United Nations where Iran was recently appointed to a human rights group is cynicism on steroids.

United Nations General Assembly, UN Watch

The 15-point proposal by the United States includes restrictions on Iran's nuclear program and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran's 10-point proposal prior to the talks focused on a guaranteed end to the war and control over the Strait of Hormuz, where it plans to collect a maritime passage fee for each ship passing through, amounting to $1 million. An average of 100 to 130 ships passed through the strait daily, prior to the U.S.-Israel joint aerial assaults. 

That toll, if permitted to proceed, despite the deep objections of the other Gulf States that the IRGC has been bombing persistently since February 28, would enable the Islamic Republic to amass an astronomical fortune, far outstripping its revenues up to the conflict derived from its energy products. And all of it would be directed toward restoring its destroyed ballistic missile and drone stocks, along with other military assets that it has lost during the prosecution of the war, including warplanes and warships. 

"An integrated suite of unmanned maritime systems and sensors, the MCM MP counteracts mines in the littorals while increasing the host vessel’s standoff distance from the threat area."

"Embarked with the MCM MP, [a littoral combat ship] or a vessel of opportunity can conduct the full spectrum of detect-to-engage operations (hunt, neutralize, and sweep) against mine threats using sensors and weapons deployed from the MCM Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV), an MH-60S multi-mission helicopter, and associated support equipment."

U.S. Navy, new mine countermeasures mission package

Getty Images

 

Iranian Sponsored Social Media Propaganda

"You've got one end of the spectrum that's at zero and you've got that other group that's disproportionately probably more and more susceptible to following direction from influencers on selected social media, which is probably what this is attributable to."

"Medium to long term, there may be some unlearning that needs to be done amongst persons that are adopting such positions that clearly are not well informed if they think the majority of Iranians are  supporting the Iranian regime. That's incorrect." 

Jack Jedwab, President and CEO, Association for Canadian Studies

 

"[Scores of fake online accounts that were] coming from Iranians inside Iran linked to the regime and fuelling the campus protests at McGill [University, Montreal]."

"A massive, funded, co-ordinated and organized [effort by Iran designed to influence public opinion and government policy]."

Canadian investigative journalist Nagar Mojahedi

 

"As the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7, 2023, Iran immediately surged support to Hamas with its now well-honed technique of combining targeted hacks with influence operations amplified on social media, what we refer to as cyber-enabled influence operations."

"By late October, nearly all of Iran's influence and major cyber actors focused on Israel in an increasingly targeted, coordinated, and destructive manner, making for a seemingly boundless 'all-hands-on-deck' campaign against Israel."

Microsoft Threat Analysis team

While most prefer neutrality in the Iran war, many in the Gen Z cohort think Canada should support the Iranian regime, according a new poll. Photo by Peter J Thompson/National Post

 

A  new Leger poll highlights that a significant portion of Canada's youngest adults subscribe to the belief that Canada should be supporting the Iranian regime in defence against the U.S. and Israel's aerial onslaught against the Islamic Republic. One-fifth (20 percent) of respondents between the ages of 18 to 24 felt that Ottawa should 'politically support' the Iranian regime's leadership. Among that age cohort only eight percent think the United States, Israel and other allied nations in the three-week-old war should receive Canada's backing. 

 

In contrast, results for older Canadians are the reverse to the youth contingent. Among Canadians aged 45 to 54, three percent support the Iranian regime; among the age group 55 to 64, one percent, and zero percent among Canadians aged 65 and older. A quarter of these older Canadian groups feel that Canada should be in support of its historic allies; at the rate of 23, 25 and 26 percent respectively.

 

The Islamic Republic of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps has been listed on the Canadian government terrorist list for the past two years. Jack Jedwab, whose group commissioned the poll, felt that the response by young Canadians reflected the fact of misinformation that has been disseminated by malign foreign interests among the gen Z cohort -- among whom 32 percent believe that Iranian-Canadians do not support the U.S.-Israel military actions against Islamic Republic of Iran. 

 

Despite the demonstrations by Iranian-Canadians celebrating in support of the U.S.-Israeli actions in Iran on the streets of Canada in jubilation that this may see the end of that violently repressive regime, over half of all respondents said they don't know.

 

Across all age groups, half of the poll's respondents felt that Canada should remain neutral in the escalating conflict, while one-fifth said they don't know are aren't certain. "It's a combination also of our own sort of self-evaluation or assessment of ourselves as the nation that is seeking or desires peaceful solutions and outcomes", was Mr. Jedwab's interpretation of the poll results, highlighting a November 2024 ASC poll finding that Canadians are 92 percent for peace with all nations, yet still felt that war could not be avoided even if one side stood down.

 

"Things are going to be more complex than that. I think some of that thinking underlies part of the neutrality view." In his view, Mr. Jedwab stated it appears that the Liberal government is attempting to balance neutrality with some Canadians' expectation that Canada should aid its allies. "That's a challenging position to take and we'll see what types of pressure are exerted in the coming days and weeks on the part of the U.S. and its allies for middle powers like Canada to become engaged, and assist those who prefer greater disengagement to better understand what the stakes are." 

 

The youth cohort, Mr. Jedwab observed, is especially drawn by anti-Trump sentiment, despite the fact that the IRGC is a terrorist entity, and the Islamic Republic itself is universally acknowledged to be a regime that encourages and supports and funds terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Yemeni Houthis, as well as Iraqi Shiite terror groups. 

 

"That is not something that can be taken lightly at all in trying to see one's way clearer in this war."

"It's something one needs to consider carefully in terms of drawing conclusions about where Canada should stand on this." 

 

Al-Quds Day protesters, right, were met with a sizeable counter protest near the U.S. Consulate in Toronto, Ontario, on March 14, 2026. Photo by GEOFF ROBINS /AFP via Getty Images

 

"In late 2024, Meta -- the company that owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp -- shut down a sophisticated Iranian influence operation run by the dictatorship's Islamic Revolutionary Guard."

"Meta's Threat Disruption Center revealed that Iran, aided and abetted by Hezbollah, was running multiple fake accounts across Meta's platforms as well as on TikTok, X, and others."

"Iran-supported Hezbollah created fake sites and purchased thousands of dollars of advertising on Facebook and Instagram."

Warren Kinsella, The Hidden Hand: The Information War and the Rise of Antisemitic Propaganda 

The Passions Unleashed by Dominating Hatred

"[The Al Quds Day rally has] long been a venue for antisemitism, hatred, intimidation and the glorification of terrorism."

"While the judge cited Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, when we talk about rights we need to be clear that every person has the right to safety and security."

"We need to be clear that no one in Canada has the right to incite violence or free licence to intimidate and hate."

"I won't stop working to put an end to the hatred and division that runs too rampant on Canada's streets." "I won't stop working to protect the greatest province in the greatest country in the world."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford 

 

"The Attorney General has known for at least a year that the Al Quds rally would take place around this time. The Attorney General relies on statements made by protest organizers that date back to 2016. The province of Ontario did not pass any laws or regulations to deal with this event. It did not invoke the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. E.9."

"Even allowing for rapidly moving current events, the Attorney General should not have come to court mere hours before the rally was set to start. There was no possibility of cross-examination on any of the affidavits and the oral argument was necessarily truncated. Such a compressed timetable puts the court in a difficult position."

"There is no evidence that participants at last year’s rally incited hatred or engaged in hate speech. There is no evidence before me of any criminality arising out of this rally in the past, much less evidence that could satisfy me that there is a ‘strong case’ that there will be criminal activity this year."

Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Centa 

Protesters and counter-protesters demonstrate by the U.S. Consulate during a rally for Al-Quds Day in Toronto, on Saturday, March 14, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan

 

"It was a political show by Ford. He doesn't need any court order. He's a premier and he has a duty, he has power and full authority to implement the law."

"If Ford, [Prime Minister] Mark Carney, Toronto police, [Toronto] Mayor [Olivia] Chow, they don't want to do their job, we the people ... have the duty to stand."

Salmon Sima, Iranian refugee, Canadian activist  

The Premier of Ontario tasked his attorney general to seek a court injunction against the annually ritualized Al Quds Day taking place in Toronto. The injunction application stated: "There is a serious risk of violence arising from or occurring at the rally", including mischief, intimidation and in the process ignoring Criminal Code hate laws that include public incitement of hatred, or wilful promotion of antisemitism. Rally organizers along with the Al-Quds Committee, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Lebanese4Palestine and the Canada-banned terrorist group Samidoun linked with the PFLP were sued by the Province.

Al-Quds Day is a creation of the  Islamic Republic of Iran, dating from the 1979 revolution when the Palestinian 'cause' was taken up by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem, the contested ancient city of Judean ancestral heritage claimed by the nascent state of Arabic 'Palestine' as their capital, championed by the Iranian regime, became the purpose of the annual rally, a disguised scheme to invalidate Israel's claim to the city and to portray Israel as an interloper, not the rightful claimant through ancient indigeneity. 

Wherever Islamists have settled in the West they subscribe to this historical revisionism and mount such an infamous rally in world capitals.

On Saturday, 14 March, in Toronto, an estimated 4,500 people turned out to the pro-Palestinian rally with a double purpose this year, a protest against the U.S.-Israel bombardment of the Islamic Republic, that very regime that two months earlier slaughtered tens of thousands of Iranian protesters who marched for the end of the regime in cities across Iran, only to be met with armed police action shooting protesters to death, arresting untold numbers to be tortured in Iran's hated prisons. 

 

This is the country that has the Middle East and the West on edge over their nuclear program and medium-to-long-range missiles.

 

A counter-protest also took place outside the U.S. Consulate in Toronto Saturday. (Mercedes Gaztambide/CBC)

 

A counter-rally was staged by Iranian Canadians opposed to the Islamic theocracy that has transformed their country of origin into a pariah in the Middle East and abroad for its broad range of human rights crimes, its well-known support for terrorism and its control of terrorist groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Territories. Both supporters of Israel, Canadians of Jewish extraction carrying Israeli flags and Iranian Canadians carrying the original flag of Iran under its dynastic Shahs were present to wave their Canadian flags in allegiance to the country which under the Liberal government appears to be signalling that allegiance is now misplaced.

 

Mere days following shots being fired at the U.S. Consulate at University Avenue and Armour Street, the Al-Quds rally attendees made their presence known. They stood on the south side of Armoury Street, holding up Palestinian flags and calling for an end to the war in Iran. On the opposite, north side, counter-demonstrators waved Israeli, pre-Revolutionary Iranian and Trump 2028 flags, along with Canadian flags. 

 

The Al-Quds crowd held up large banners with the insignia of the Islamic Republic of Iran. On this occasion, Iranian regime flags outnumbered those of the Palestinian flags, mourners carried portraits of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and protesters urged support of retaliatory attacks on Israel from the Islamic Republic that has always outwardly threatened to destroy the Jewish state. 

 

This display of pure, unadulterated hatred for Israel's right of existence, inflamed by the support of terror against 'colonialism' and 'unjust wars', aiming directly at Israel's right to defend itself from existential threats represents the sole purpose of such events. And Iranian Canadians will have none of it, knowing all too well that it is that state theocratic regime that has destroyed their country.

Unit: Hate Crime Unit

Case #: 2026-538606

Published: Sunday, March 15, 2026, 10:32 AM

The Toronto Police Service is making the public aware of two arrests made at the Al-Quds Day demonstration. 

On Saturday, March 14, 2026, the Al-Quds Day demonstration took place in the University Avenue and Armoury Street area. In addition to those attending the Al-Quds Day demonstration, counter-demonstrators were also present. During two unrelated incidents, two men were arrested. 

It is alleged that:

• the accused, a male participating in the counter-demonstration, engaged with the victim, a participant in the Al-Quds demonstration, who was holding a stick with an Islamic Republic of Iran flag attached
• the accused began swinging his arms and fists at the victim, breaking the stick and causing pieces of it to strike the victim in the head

Mostafa Shabanian Bashmandoost, 39, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with:

1. Assault
2. Criminal Harassment
3. Theft Under $5000
4. Possession of Property Obtained by Crime Under $5000
5. Public Incitement of Hatred

He is scheduled to appear in court at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre, 2201 Finch Avenue West, on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at 10 a.m., in room 105.

These investigations are being treated as suspected hate-motivated offences.

 

Farshid McVandifar, 56, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with:

1. Mischief – Damage Property Under $5000
2. Assault

He is scheduled to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice, 10 Armoury Street, on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, at 11 a.m., in room 203.

It is further alleged that:

• the second accused, a male participating in the counter demonstration, followed the victim, a participant of the Al-Quds demonstration, who was wearing an Islamic Republic of Iran flag on their back
• the accused spat on the victim and ripped the flag off their back
• the accused returned into the crowd and was later located among the counter demonstration group
• the accused was then observed to be lighting an Islamic Republic of Iran flag on fire and wearing Islamic Republic of Iran flags attached to the soles of his shoes.

As usual, when police attend to these events, it is those who are victimized, threatened through the intimidation of double-speak that are driven to respond with action that reflects their outrage at the malice directed against those who subscribe to liberty and the defence of  human rights, who are held accountable for disturbances, rarely those who mount such radicalized pure-hate events whose purpose is achieved through the police applied courtesy of enablement... 

Toronto police said Thursday they planned to increase their presence in the area of the rally. (Mercedes Gaztambide/CBC)

 

 

Striking Tehran for Al Quds Day

"These attacks are out of fear, out of desperation. One who is strong wouldn't bomb demonstrations at all. It's clear that it has failed."

"[The American leader underestimated Iran’s resolve.] He doesn't understand that the Iranian people are a brave nation, a strong nation, a determined nation."

"The more he presses, the stronger the nation's determination will become."

Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council 

 

"The optics are devastating."

"Israel just bombed a Ramadan gathering dedicated to Jerusalem. Every government in the Muslim world will face domestic pressure to respond."

Gulf-based anonymous diplomat  

Blasts strike Tehran’s Al-Quds day rally amid escalating US-Israeli strikes   Daily Jang

 

Israel issued a warning to Iranians on a Farsi-language X account. That warning was clear; that people should not attend the annual Al Quds Day rally to which the Iranian regime had urged all Iranians to turn out to demonstrate their loyalty to the Republic and its aims, even and most particularly during a time of great tension and danger, with air strikes over Iran and Tehran's military and weapons-storage and nuclear plants struck by the U.S. and Israel on a daily basis. The warning urged Iranians to clear the area, shortly before a planned attack on Tehran's central square.

 

It is doubtful that many Iranians received the message, since the regime had shut down all internet communications. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian in a social media post urged Iranian citizens to "disappoint Iran's enemies by taking to the streets in greater numbers than ever before". When Iranians in January 'took to the streets' all across the nation, they numbered in the tens of thousands in city after city, and not at the behest of their government. Their impetus to rally and demonstrate, despite the inherent dangers was to protest against the government.

 

The risks they took, in a regime known to be dismissive of human rights and which had in the past attacked its own people when they peacefully assembled to protest against the anti-human rights excesses of the  regime, was not unknown to the courageous civilians who faced off against the Basij police who used live ammunition to fire on protesters. An estimated 30,000 of whom were killed, many tens of thousands wounded and countless others arrested and tortured as opponents of the regime.  

 

Shiite Muslims stand over the representation of US and Israeli flags with pictures of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu during an annual Al-Quds Day rally in Peshawar, Pakistan, on March 13. NDTV

 

Gathered on Friday, ostensibly to support Palestinian claims to statehood on ancient Judean ancestral land, and to chant calls for the destruction of Israel, Iranians faithful to the regime gathered in Ferdowski Square in Tehran for the annual state-organized rally. The yearly rally, meant to take place on the last Friday of Ramadan, takes place when Iran loyalists globally remain faithful to the call, and arrange for similar ceremonial al-Quds rallies to take place throughout Europe and North America.

 

This year Israel targeted the area, as warned, but that warning did nothing to stop the mass demonstration, attended by a smattering of senor government officials. The bombing of the square is part and parcel of Israel's decision to destroy the infrastructure and leadership of the Iranian theocratic regime. Despite the combined daily aerial bombardment of both Israel and the United States -- and in fact, because of it -- Iran has responded by launching widespread missile and drone attacks not only on Israel, but at neighbouring Gulf states. 

PBS News

 

The midday explosion that rocked the Ferdowski Square area where crowds chanted "Death to Israel", "Death to America", sent crowds scrambling. No reports of casualties were immediately given. Following the strike, footage from the scene saw people chanting "God is greatest" in the fervour of divine belief, even as smoke billowed high in the area. 

 

A second message was posted in Farsi by the Israeli military criticizing Iran for blocking people from seeing their pre-strike warning. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei who leads the Iranian judiciary, was giving an interview on state television while at the demonstration, as the strike took place. He stated that Iran, "under this rain [of] missiles will never withdraw", as his bodyguards protectively surrounded him. 

 

Black smoke rises following an explosion in Tehran, as Iranians take part in the Al-Quds Day rally, a commemoration in support of the Palestinian people held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. (Elaheh Asiabi/Fars News Agency/AFP/Getty)

 

 

 

Message to the People of Iran

Trump speaks with the CIA chief, John Ratcliffe, left, alongside the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday. Photograph: The White House/Reuters

"[Grand Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History is dead."

"[Khamenei] was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do."

"This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country." 

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

Months in the planning stages, the  joint American/Israeli operation began on Saturday during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan -- following nuclear program negotiations that went nowhere on a circuitous route of circumvention, protestations of innocence of intent alongside declarations of entitlement and stall tactics that the Islamic Republic is known for. Despite the tension building up to the moment, it is doubtful that anyone believed military action would indeed be taken against the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

 

Yet the action, in a seeming repeat of June's combined Israeli-U.S. attacks on Iran's nuclear installations, its military headquarters and weapons-storage units as well as the regime's missile-launch sites, seemed inevitable given its theocratic rulers' frequently repeated intentions to attack Israel to wipe it from the face of the Middle East, and its ongoing characterization of the United States as 'Satan' needing to be confronted. The ever-increasing lethality and reach of Iran's ballistic missiles threatening to reach the U.S. seaboard, as well as its  history of fomenting schemes with its terrorist proxies to attack U.S. forces signed its death warrant.

 

The final impetus to carry out a final attack to exterminate the ruling theocracy, its military and policing units came courtesy of the Iranian people themselves whose eruption of mass protests in January against stringent economic conditions resulting from the regime's focus on funding its sponsored, trained and armed terror groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories while Western sanctions imposed high inflation and medical and food shortages at spiralling prices, drove ordinary Iranians to massive protests. Protests the regime responded to with expected brutality, where thousands among the protest movement were killed, tens of thousands wounded and imprisoned.

 

"Hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks" responded in retaliation from Iran to targets in Israel and toward U.S. military bases in Gulf States. Targets in Iran included Revolutionary Guard command facilities, air defence systems, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields. The commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian defence minister, along with the secretary of the Iranian Security Council had been targeted by Israel and were extinguished.

 

Among the first strikes on Iran, the compound of the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei was shown by satellite photography to have been utterly crushed. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his wife, and several of their offspring were killed in the strikes that levelled his offices and all the associated buildings in the compound. Although this wasn't entirely predictable, there was an expectation built on the obvious conclusion that the buildup of the largest force of U.S. warships and aircraft in decades in the Middle East presaged just this.

Satellite image showing damage to the compound of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran   Airbus DS 2026 

 

In the earlier June of 2025 aerial assaults carried out jointly by Israel and the U.S. meant to defuse Iran's nuclear capabilities, and to destroy its armouries and ballistic missile launching sites to put an end to the regional threats posed by the regime, it had been generally felt that the mission had accomplished its goal. Since then, however, it became clear that Iran's nuclear program had not after all been obliterated and that the regime was busy rebuilding destroyed infrastructure. Moreover its centrifuges were producing highly enriched weapons-grade uranium. 

"The  hour of  your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside." 

"Bombs will be dropping everywhere."

"When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take."

"This will be probably your only chance for generations."

U.S. President Donald Trump ... message to the people of Iran 

Smoke rises up after a strike in Tehran on March 1, 2026. (Vahid Salemi/The Associated Press)

Increasing Pressure on Iran With Threats of Strikes

"Aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), its escorts and embarked Carrier Air Wing 8 have been tasked from their current position in the Caribbean to the Middle East to support a U.S. naval buildup in the region, USNI News has learned."
"Ford, currently in the Caribbean Sea, will join the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group against the backdrop of the Iranian government’s lethal crackdown against protestors and nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and leadership in Tehran, a U.S. official confirmed to USNI News."

U.S. Naval Institute

 

"[Failure to reach a deal with my administration would be] very traumatic."

"I guess over the next month, something like that [timeline for striking a deal on the nuclear program]."

"It should happen quickly. They should agree very quickly."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

Sailors aboard aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) conduct routine flight operations on the flight deck, Sept. 26, 2025. US Navy photo

 

The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, scheduled for an overdue maintenance has been ordered by the Trump administration to instead extend its deployment despite having been at sea for close to eight months. Accordingly, the aircraft carrier and its escort ships are currently en route to the Middle East in response to Iran's defiance of the U.S. government's pressure for a new nuclear agreement. 

 

From its deployment in the Caribbean Sea, the USS Gerald R. Ford is now scheduled to sail across the Atlantic Ocean with its crew of 4,200 sailors. Whether the carrier's accompanying warships would be included in the orders to deploy to the Middle East or whether other destroyers and vessels would instead sail with the carrier has not yet been established. 

 

President Trump has threatened openly to attack the Islamic Republic should it not comply with his  demands, even as diplomatic overtures are ongoing with an aim to avert kinetic action, adding more violence on top of U.S. strikes hitting Iran's nuclear sites in June of 2025. The tension in the region between Iran, Israel and the United States is palpable and the outcome uncertain.

 

Admiral Daryl Caudle, head of the US. Navy publicly issued an alert last month that the Ford and other vessels comprising its carrier strike group are needful of maintenance and there would be 'some pushback' from him should an extension of the deployment -- which typically lasts about seven months to meet repair schedules -- be sought. "Let's see if there's something else I can do", he said publicly.  

"Extensions for East Coast carrier strike groups beyond the Navy’s planned seven-month deployments have become the norm over the years because of an overworked carrier force resulting from ongoing maintenance delays and combatant commander requirements."

"Since December 2021, CSGs have averaged almost nine-month deployments. The carriers often operated in the Mediterranean, but shifted to Middle East-centric deployments after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Southern Israel and the subsequent Houthi aggression in the Red Sea."

U.S. Naval Institute 

The USS Gerald R. Ford, seen here transiting the Strait of Gibraltar, is currently heading toward the Middle East. (MCS Alyssa Joy/U.S. Navy)

 

However, in the event, it appears the Pentagon and the navy reached an agreement that no better alternatives presented, and the carrier would be sent to the Middle East. The USS George H.W. Bush in the midst of an exercise, was not seen to be ready for an assignment, and the USS George Washington was discussed as alternatives, but the latter returned to port in Yokosuka Japan after a Pacific region six-month mission. The Ford had been  diverted to the Caribbean in October joining efforts to press Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro to step down and was directly involved in the Special Operations raid capturing the Venezuelan leader.

 

The massing of firepower in the Middle East will see the Ford joining the USS Abraham Lincoln. Despite last month seeing President Trump considering striking Iran, course was shifted as defence officials raised their concerns over the potential vulnerability of regional security deteriorating. The Pentagon's response to heightened tension with Iran led to assigning two carrier groups providing not merely dozens of fighter jets aboard, but as well the arsenal of missiles and air defence capabilities supplied by accompanying destroyers. 

 

 

Iran At A Crossroad

"We are very frightened because of these sounds [of gunfire] and protests."

"We have heard many are killed and many are injured."

"Now peace has been restored, but schools are closed, and I'm scared to send my children to school again." 

Iranian mother of two

 

"[Protesters are the] butlers [of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and] Trump’s soldiers."

"[Netanyahu and Trump should await] hard revenge from the system."

"Americans and Zionists should not expect peace."

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts and Guardian Council

 

"I believe the president [Trump] is a man of his word."

"Regardless of whether action [U.S. military intervention] is taken or not, we as Iranians have no choice to carry on the fight."

"I will return to Iran."

Exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi  

Iranian senior cleric Ahmad Khatami delivers his sermon during Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

 

Demonstrations in Iran were initiated by Iranians frustrated with the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, an economic collapse that has wrung Iranians' disposable income for the acquisition of ordinary household items and food dry of  purchasing power. But that frustration was piled upon years of government exploitation, coercion, theocratic decrees and punishment meted out harshly by a totalitarian government reliant on the threat potential of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps and the volunteer Basij militia to keep the population in check any time Iranians grew restive and demanded changes that would more closely reflect the values of ordinary people in the country.

 

Iranians knew that international sanctions levied on their nation resulted from its nuclear program. They were aware that their government was using its vast natural energy resources to fund terrorist groups while the population suffered deprivation of heating oil, medicine, and basic food staples. When the protests grew exponentially day after day for two weeks, with ever larger numbers of people and merchants participating to express their anger and rejection, the regime responded with force to control the crowds, arresting thousands.

 

Soon the methods of policing control accelerated to the use of lethal force and bodies began to pile up in morgues, while hospitals were overwhelmed with the wounded. Expatriate Iranians living in the West did their utmost to give emotional support to their families back in Iran, and begged their governments to intervene to stop the carnage. Israel and the United States both responded to the unfolding national chaos of protests breaking out everywhere across the country and the theocratic regime's hard response, by championing the protesters and applauding their courage against the savage response of their totalitarian government. 

Iranian protesters demonstrate against the regime in Tehran on January 10, 2026. (Social Media via ZUMA Press Wire)

 

President Trump repeatedly made statements in support of the protests, urging the people of Iran to continue to express their grievances. He has also on numerous occasions warned the regime of the potential of American military action in response to the wanton slaughter of civilians. The memory of last summer's 12-day war alongside Israel when Tehran was aerial-bombed, nuclear and rocket sites targeted, and key military personnel were assassinated, no doubt alarmed the Ayatollahs while heartening the populace. 

 

The head of the Iranian judiciary spoke of fast trials and hanging executions in store for those detained in the nationwide protests, despite repeated warning from the American President of military action over peaceful demonstrators being killed. Iranian authorities warned of its intention to commit a pre-emptive strike, alleging that Israel and the United States had orchestrated the protests. 

 

During the demonstrations an estimated 100 security force members were killed which led to a mass state funeral where tens of thousands of mourners attended, holding Iranian flags and photographs of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Draped in Iranian flags the caskets were stacked three high and covered with red and white roses and framed photographs of the dead. 

 

In contrast, human rights groups estimate that between 12,000 and 20,000 Iranian protesters had been killed. When grieving families attempted to claim the bodies of their loved ones, they were only able to take possession of the cherished bodies if they paid the government levy of an immense sum of thousands of dollars which few among them could afford. As ransom for the corpses of their 'terrorist' family members.

 

Plainclothes security forces milled about some neighbourhoods leaving people in the streets fearful of the regime's promise that any who defied the regime, insulted it and rallied against it would be in line for the death penalty. Anti-riot police and members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard's all-volunteer Basij force returned to their  barracks. The protests have been subdued.

 

The governments of Qatar, Turkey, Oman (allies of Iran) and Egypt have persuaded President Trump that he should seriously second-think his stated goal of intervening militarily on behalf of the beleaguered population of the Islamic Republic. To do so, they warned  would pose a real risk of wider regional disturbances that had the potential of beginning an all-out war. "Unprecedented consequences" would result in the region that could explode to a "full-blown war".  

 

People gather during protest on January 8, 2026 in Tehran, Iran.

(photo credit: Anonymous/Getty Images)