Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic has cultivated sophisticated and lethal terrorist networks not only in the Middle East, but also in Europe, the U.S., and above all Latin America. But it has also turned more recently to using propaganda to encourage individual, small-scale attacks by Shiites, including most famously the 2022 stabbing of the novelist Salman Rushdie. America’s killing of the Iranian general and master terrorist Qassem Suleimani has encouraged this approach, write Moustafa Ayad and Matthew Levitt.
Consider the case of Nika Nikoubin, a woman who reportedly met a man online and scheduled a rendezvous in March 2022. The two convened at a Las Vegas hotel, where they were engaging in sexual activity when Nikoubin stabbed the man in the neck “for revenge against U.S. troops for the killing of Qassem Suleimani in 2020,” according to a police report. Police body-camera footage showed Nikoubin confessing to the attack. “I guess [it was] out of spite and revenge,” she said in the recording. “I mean, the U.S. killed Suleimani. Lots of blood spilled. So, I feel like it’s fair that American blood be spilled.”
Iran itself runs extensive digital influence operations. After the Suleimani killing, it used Instagram accounts to menace the White House and Trump family members with images of coffins draped in U.S. flags, captioned “Prepare the coffins.”
In spring of 2023, Britain’s media watchdog, Ofcom, fined the Shiite satellite television station in the country—Ahlebait TV—for broadcasting anti-Semitic hate speech that included references to divine punishment to justify the expulsion of Jews from various societies throughout history, and blamed this persecution on the Jews themselves.
The digital ecosystem nurtured by the Iranian government, comprising the work of numerous state-run media outlets and Middle East militias (and published in many languages), has been well documented. . . . Beyond outlets engaged in information warfare are numerous support groups, channels, pages, and influencers in (extremist-friendly) alt-tech and closed platforms, which create echo chambers that support attacking Iran’s enemies globally. More concerning is that these radical influencers are engaging primarily with English-speaking audiences. . . . Rather than relying on disinformation, these “cyber actors” actively proselytize for Tehran, its various military and intelligence services, and its Middle East proxies.
Read more on Washington Institute for Near East Policy: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/iran-looking-inspire-shia-homegrown-violent-extremist-attacks