{"id":39,"date":"2026-05-16T21:05:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T21:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newhomeamerica.com\/?p=39"},"modified":"2026-05-16T21:05:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T21:05:34","slug":"these-middle-eastern-news-sites-are-actually-u-s-government-propaganda-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newhomeamerica.com\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"These Middle Eastern News Sites Are Actually U.S. Government Propaganda Operations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Al-Fassel and Pishtaz News<\/span> look like typical news websites. They have neatly designed homepages and active social media accounts, where they share reporting and videos on Middle Eastern geopolitics in Arabic and Farsi, respectively, as well as English. Al-Fassel\u2019s X account states the publication\u2019s mission is \u201cto investigate events of great significance that are often overlooked by local and regional media, and to shed light on them.\u201d The Pishtaz News X account says it was established \u201cto investigate and expand upon important news that local and regional media often overlook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Pentagon Erases Wounded U.S. Troops From Iran War Casualty List: \u201cDefinition of a Cover-up\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

These overlooked stories share the same ideological slant and editorial voice: that of the White House. Al-Fassel\u2019s YouTube account, for instance, has racked up millions of views on Arabic-language videos praising the Trump administration\u2019s Gaza policy and exhorting Hamas to cease \u201ctaking orders from the Iranian regime\u201d and release Israeli prisoners. On Pishtaz News, a poll on the homepage recently asked: \u201c[H]ow would you describe your belief about the Supreme Leader\u2019s current health status and whereabouts?\u201d Possible answers range from \u201cIn good health but hiding\u201d to \u201cDisfigured\u201d or \u201cDead.\u201d The excellence of Saudi and Emirati leadership, both close military partners of the U.S., is a recurring theme.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason this coverage echoes American foreign policy talking points. Al-Fassel and Pishtaz News are, in fact, part of network of websites and social media accounts purporting to be legitimate Middle Eastern news outlets that are in fact propaganda mills funded by the United States government, The Intercept has found.<\/p>\n

Disclosed only at the bottom of both sites behind an \u201cAbout\u201d link that is easily missed by casual readers, the outlets note that they are \u201ca product of an international media organization publicly funded from the budget of the United States Government.\u201d The government affiliation remains undisclosed on social media platforms including Instagram, despite a platform policy requiring the labeling of state-backed media outlet to prevent the unwitting consumption of government propaganda.<\/p>\n

The sites\u2019 recent fixation on crushing Iran is unlikely to be a coincidence: Both publications share numerous connections with a portfolio of fake newsrooms that originated as a military psychological operations campaign against foreign internet users.<\/p>\n

Al-Fassel and Pishtaz News did not respond to requests for comment, nor did CENTCOM or the Department of Defense. <\/p>\n

In 2008,<\/span> U.S. Special Operations Command put out a call for contractors to help operate what it called the Trans-Regional Web Initiative, a project that would provide \u201crapid, on-order global dissemination of web-based influence products and tools in support of strategic and long-term U.S. Government goals and objectives.\u201d In other words, state propaganda pushed by Pentagon.<\/p>\n

Masquerading as independent online newsrooms, the TRWI sites hired \u201cindigenous content stringers\u201d to produce articles \u201cwhich Combatant Commands (COCOMs) can use as necessary in support of the Global War on Terror.\u201d The contract, awarded to General Dynamics Information Technology, spawned 10 websites that funneled U.S. foreign policy talking points to audiences across the Middle East and South Asia, running everything from banal essays about inter-faith coexistence to, as reported by Foreign Policy in 2011, articles intended to \u201cwhitewash the image of Central Asian dictatorships.\u201d By 2014, the sites were deemed a failure by Congress and de-funded.<\/p>\n

Eight years later, a team of researchers published an unusual report. Following the 2016 election, the bulk of the Western media\u2019s interest in online propagandizing had focused on influence campaigns attributed to Russia, China, and other American geopolitical rivals. But the 2022 report from the Stanford Internet Observatory and Graphika, a commercial internet analysis firm and Pentagon information warfare contractor, uncovered a network of phony \u201cpro-Western\u201d Twitter and Facebook accounts that pushed articles from pseudo-news websites. The report stopped short of formally attributing the campaign to the U.S., but noted that both Meta and Twitter had done so. The researchers concluded that the accounts in question attempted the coordinated spread of articles from a network of sham news websites established by U.S. Special Operations Command.<\/p>\n

The report found that just a few years after TRWI\u2019s ostensible death, many of the sites had simply rebranded, now carrying hard-to-find disclosures mentioning they were run by U.S. Central Command. Following Stanford and Graphika\u2019s findings, some of the sites shut down; others continued. Subsequent reporting by the Washington Post found that the embarrassing revelations spurred the Pentagon to conduct \u201ca sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

A review of the Internet Archive shows that in the aftermath of the Stanford report, TRWI sites that remained in operation changed their disclosure language. Rather than citing CENTCOM sponsorship, these sites shifted to state that they are \u201cpublicly funded from the budget of the United States Government.\u201d The disclosure language used by the remaining network of CENTCOM propaganda sites is a word-for-word copy of the phrasing The Intercept found tucked away on the About pages of Pishtaz News and Al-Fassel.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the only evidence suggesting a link to this network of military propaganda sites.<\/p>\n

Since they began publishing in 2023, Al-Fassel and Pishtaz News have regularly quoted or summarized CENTCOM press releases touting regional operations and battlefield successes, as did the outlets mentioned in the Stanford\/Graphika report. The reliance on combatant command press releases in particular is an editorial strategy that dates back to the original SOCOM-run TRWI network.<\/p>\n

On X, Pishtaz News follows only three other users; two are the official CENTCOM accounts for Farsi and Arabic audiences. The Pishtaz News Instagram account, which carries no disclosure of the account\u2019s governmental nature, follows only one other user: \u201cUS CENTCOM FARSI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Intentionally or otherwise, Al-Fassel\u2019s posts to X are often geotagged as having been sent from Lutz, Florida, a stone\u2019s throw from the headquarters of CENTCOM and SOCOM in Tampa, as well as myriad military contractors that service both.<\/p>\n

Both sites also share common design elements with the TRWI-associated publications that suggest they were created or operated by the same contractor: All posts conclude with a poll asking \u201cDo you like this article?\u201d using the same thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons. URLs are structured identically for Al-Fassel, Pishtaz News, and Salaam Times \u2014 an Afghanistan-focused site launched under the TRWI that continues today under a different name \u2014 suggesting they were coded using the same tools. The three sites use an identical 404 error graphic to alert users when they\u2019ve clicked on a broken link, as well.<\/p>\n

The web design of Al-Fassel and Pishtaz News \u2014 including page layout, URL structure, 404 error graphic, and much of the legal verbiage in the About sections \u2014 closely mirrors that of CENTCOMcitadel.com, a publication with similar content that carries an overt disclosure of Pentagon sponsorship at the bottom of its homepage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese sites are similar in style to the overt messaging efforts we saw from the Department of Defense previously,\u201d Ren\u00e9e DiResta, a former Stanford researcher and co-author of the 2022 report, told The Intercept. \u201cWe previously saw this pattern of clearer U.S. affiliation language in the About page of the domain, then minimal to no acknowledgement on the social media profiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are other subtle nods to the sites\u2019 true purpose: URLs for the English language versions of each site are denoted \u201cen_GB,\u201d for Great Britain. In a comprehensive of the TRWI network, University of Bath doctoral student Roy Revie observed that the network of American military propaganda sites explicitly marked their English versions as British because \u201cSOCOM seeks to avoid any suggestion its sites are aimed at US audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the parlance of information warfare, these propaganda shops are considered \u201covert\u201d rather than \u201ccovert,\u201d because their state ownership is technically disclosed. But in his 2015 , Revie argued that these psyop sites still engage in deception. They use online journalism as a form of camouflage, he wrote, because most readers won\u2019t seek out a publication\u2019s About page to learn about its funding. The design of these sites \u201callows the DOD to credibly claim full transparency and maintain legitimacy, putting the onus onto the user to inform themselves about the source,\u201d Revie wrote.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The output of<\/span> both sites consistently lionizes the U.S. and Israel, along with America\u2019s Gulf allies. They regularly demean the Iranian state, presenting a wholly lopsided and misleading account in a time of war. \u201cThe US says it does not seek open conflict with Tehran,\u201d reads a March 2 article in Al-Fassel. Both sites have repeatedly cited reporting by Iran International \u2014 a Saudi-funded, pro-Israel, Iranian monarchist publication with a long record of journalistic misrepresentation. A March 31 Pishtaz News article, for instance, based on an entirely anonymously sourced Iran International post, alleged that Iranian security forces gang-raped nurses in Tehran.<\/p>\n

Read more Hegseth Clings to Phony Ceasefire to Help Trump Evade War Powers Pressure<\/a><\/p>\n

Recent coverage depicts Iran as up against the ropes. A March 22 article in Pishtaz News exclaimed, \u201cThe Islamic Republic\u2019s regular army, known as the Artesh, is increasingly described by informed observers as a force under severe strain and institutional neglect.\u201d Another anonymously authored piece from March 25, headlined \u201cArtesh would be better off without its main rival,\u201d seems intended to stoke tensions between Iran\u2019s regular army and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. \u201cWithout the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), resources could flow directly to the regular army, known as the Artesh, enabling meaningful modernization,\u201d the story claimed, a talking point ripped straight from the mouths of right-wing Iran hawks in the U.S. In a March 18 Fox News segment, for example, retired Gen. Jack Keane suggested that an Artesh\u2013IRGC rivalry could be exploited to accomplish regime change.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear who exactly writes what appears on these sites. Most articles run without any byline, while other stories are published under names that are difficult to find any mention of anywhere else on the internet. Some of the personnel may not be real at all. A January Al-Fassel YouTube overview of recent regional headlines was narrated by an Arabic-speaking man in a sharp blue blazer. Experts told The Intercept the newscaster was likely a product of generative AI and not genuine footage. \u201cThe strongest indicator is an almost complete absence of eye blinks,\u201d Georgetown University professor and deepfake researcher Sejin Paik told The Intercept. Zuzanna Wojciak, a synthetic media researcher with the human rights organization Witness, reached the same conclusion, citing strange anomalies with his skin, hands, and teeth.<\/p>\n

Some articles deeply misstate or misrepresent the facts. An April 15 Al-Fassel article about Iran\u2019s \u201cwar crime threats\u201d against the American University of Beirut omitted the fact that these threats came in response to repeated U.S.\u2013Israel airstrikes against Iranian schools. The day after an Al-Fassel article described the Houthis as \u201ccrippled\u201d and \u201clargely disintegrated,\u201d capable of offering only \u201cverbal support\u201d for Iran, the Yemeni militant group launched cruise missiles at Israel.<\/p>\n

The outlets also illustrate the extent of deceptive messaging radiating from the Pentagon and White House: A March 5 post to the Pishtaz News Instagram account boasted, \u201cThe Iranian regime\u2019s ability to strike US forces and regional partners is rapidly eroding, while US combat power continues to grow.\u201d Four weeks later, Iran was continuing to lob missiles at U.S. bases as well as its regional partners, and succeeded in downing an American F-15 and A-10 Warthog. An April 4 Al-Fassel Instagram post claimed, citing Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that \u201cIran is not satisfied with a peaceful nuclear program, but seeking to enhance its military capabilities,\u201d even though a 2025 assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded the opposite.<\/p>\n

Other articles dispense with masquerading as journalism, reading more as warnings straight from Washington: \u201cUnited States is fully prepared to protect its forces in Middle East,\u201d read a June 2025 headline on Pishtaz News. \u201cWith advanced technological capabilities and highly-trained personnel, the United States maintains one of the world\u2019s most capable military forces, continuously adapting to evolving security challenges to maintain order and stability.\u201d A March 27 Pishtaz News tweet was more straightforward. \u201cYou will be systematically annihilated,\u201d it threatens in Farsi. \u201cYour commanders are hiding in bunkers. They have sent their families and wealth abroad\u2014why are you still fighting for them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some articles purport to include comments from genuine expert sources. In at least one case, this happened without the knowledge of the source. A July 2025 article in Al-Fassel predicted that a future closure of the Strait of Hormuz \u201cwould harm China and Russia more than other nations.\u201d The article quoted Umud Shokri, an energy analyst affiliated with George Mason University, the State Department, and the Middle East Institute. \u201cI would like to clarify that I was not aware of any affiliation between\u00a0alfasselnews.com\u00a0and the U.S. government,\u201d Shokri told The Intercept. \u201cI also did not have any direct interview with the platform, nor was I contacted by them directly. To the best of my knowledge, any quotation attributed to me appears to have been drawn from prior public commentary or other media appearances.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Prior to the<\/span> war on Iran, a top priority on both sites was marketing the U.S.\u2013Israeli plans for the future of Gaza. The message is essentially a distillation of the U.S.\u2013Israel\u2013Gulf State consensus: That all Palestinian suffering is brought on by Hamas rather than the past three years of Israeli bombardment, and that the Trump-sponsored \u201cBoard of Peace\u201d augurs an unprecedented era of prosperity for Palestinians.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe incoming Board of Peace,\u201d a December 2025 Al-Fassel piece claimed, \u201cis expected to foster conditions for democratic representation and meaningful civic participation.\u201d A December 12 Al-Fassel YouTube video similarly blamed Hamas and Iran, rather than Israel, for the blockade of humanitarian aid into Gaza, followed by an AI-generated image of a science fiction city overlaid with Arabic captions promising billions in foreign investment and economic revitalization for Gaza. The video currently has nearly 1.7 million views.<\/p>\n

Other items around Gaza further invert reality. Since October 2025, Gaza has been bifurcated by the so-called \u201cYellow Line,\u201d an arbitrary boundary behind which Israeli forces nominally withdrew last year. Palestinians on the Israeli side of the line face harsh occupying military governance, while those on the other side risk being killed.<\/p>\n

Despite claims by Al-Fassel\u2019s video team that Trump\u2019s Gaza policy will herald the ability for countless Palestinians to return home, Israeli forces routinely fire at civilians approaching this buffer zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncidents of gunfire, shelling, and limited incursions have continued near the \u2018Yellow Line,\u2019 the separation zone near the border with Israel, keeping any return highly dangerous,\u201d according to a United Nations video report. \u201cWith the amount of available space shrinking, thousands of families have been forced to return to the edges of their destroyed neighborhoods near the \u2018Yellow Line,\u2019 despite what residents say is the continued risk of injury or death from intermittent fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not so, says Al-Fassel: \u201cThe Yellow Line is more than a boundary; it is a lifeline designed to keep Gaza\u2019s families safe and informed during the ceasefire,\u201d claimed a November article. \u201cThe Yellow Line is not a symbol of division \u2014 it is a lifeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the 2016<\/span> election and the panic surrounding Russian covert propaganda efforts, major American social media platforms began adding labels to the accounts of government-controlled media properties. Videos from Al Jazeera English\u2019s YouTube account, for instance, come with a disclaimer that \u201cAl Jazeera is funded in whole or in part by the Qatari government.\u201d Although X abandoned this policy in 2023, it is still nominally on the books for both Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and YouTube.<\/p>\n

There is no disclosure, however, in the Instagram posts or accounts of Al-Fassel or Pishtaz News. YouTube videos from both accounts do not include a disclaimer about U.S. funding; however, a brief disclosure can be found on their main account pages, tucked into an About section that must be expanded to be read.<\/p>\n

Neither site appears to have a particularly large audience on social media. Both have paltry followings on X \u2014 about 2,400 for Al-Fassel, and only 132 following Pishtaz News \u2014 with many appearing to be spam-based accounts with names followed by a long string of numbers that engage in posting behavior common to spam networks. Al-Fassel has found modest engagement on Instagram, where it has over 7,700 followers. Though Pishtaz News has only 475 followers on Instagram, its posts sometimes break through; a March 18 post of CENTCOM footage from the deck of an aircraft carrier, for example, racked up more than 1,100 likes.<\/p>\n

At times, the content published by the propaganda sites may have reached American audiences. A March 27 Al-Fassel story alleging the total collapse of the Iranian-led \u201cAxis of Resistance\u201d was shared that same day to FreeRepublic, the conservative American message board, by user MeanWestTexan. Federal law forbids Pentagon propaganda aimed at Americans, though a similar prohibition aimed at the State Department was overturned in 2013.<\/p>\n

Sometimes their stories reach other Western readers. An Al-Fassel article on the Houthis made its way into the citations of a 2024 article in the academic journal Survival: Global Politics and Strategy by University of Ottawa professor Thomas Juneau. (Juneau did not respond to a request for comment.) A to the U.N.\u2019s Committee on Enforced Disappearances from Justice for All International, a Swiss-based nonprofit, similarly cited an Al-Fassel post on the IRGC, while an annual report by the state-operated Swedish Defence Research Agency relied in part on an Al-Fassel article on ISIS. The Intercept reviewed multiple entries on Grokipedia, X\u2019s Wikipedia clone, citing Al-Fassel articles as well.<\/p>\n

Emerson Brooking, a fellow with the Atlantic Council\u2019s Digital Forensic Research Lab and former Pentagon cyber policy adviser, believes CENTCOM is most likely behind the sites and considers their overall reach lackluster. When it comes to online propaganda, he said, the U.S. \u201ccould learn some lessons from Iran.\u201d Iranian propaganda efforts \u2014 mostly quickly produced AI slop \u2014 have captured the attention of the internet in a way that the U.S. ersatz newsrooms have not.<\/p>\n

But the sites\u2019 limited reach is unlikely to bring them to a halt anytime soon. Even as the Trump administration has gutted Voice of America and other long-standing tools of U.S. soft power, these sites have continued publishing. If their similarities to the long-running American military psyops are more than coincidental, that says more about a culture of inertia at the Pentagon than its success in winning hearts and minds. Brooking told The Intercept that because operating blogs amounts to a \u201crounding error\u201d within the broader defense budget, such projects can continue with little scrutiny.<\/p>\n

A seldom-read network of propaganda sites might seem to have little purpose. But it\u2019s the kind of thing authorities can gesture toward, Brooking said, when pressed about their efforts to combat Iran in the \u201cinformation space.\u201d \u201cSuccessive SOCOM or CENTCOM or other senior leaders could point to the fact that they\u2019re maintaining this network of websites,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more Hegseth Asks for More Money as Iran War Costs Skyrocket<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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