NightOwl

It seems hardly coincidental that right around the time Iowa University's Minerva Initiative grant was greenlit, the Pentagon began conducting wide-ranging "clandestine psychological operations" on social media, targeting the Arab and Muslim world. These efforts were highly sophisticated, employing expansive armies of bots and trolls with realistic AI-generated profile photos and accompanying 'characters.' In Iran, for instance, Pentagon sock puppets deployed varying narrative approaches to engender engagement and influence perceptions locally. Certain accounts accrued thousands of real-life followers.

Archive: [ https://archive.is/VQNuO ]

On a daily basis, there is a steady stream of reports from Syria of field executions committed against former Syrian army officers who were supposed to have been granted amnesty by the new authorities, as well as indiscriminate gunfire injuring children in the Idlib province.

The new HTS-led Syrian security forces have failed to halt the sectarian killings, kidnappings and blood feuds---often participating in the violence themselves. Instead of resisting the ongoing Israeli occupation of southern Syria, Damascus has turned its guns on dissidents, disgruntled minority groups and Lebanese border villages while boasting about preventing weapons from reaching Hezbollah---to the great delight of the Israeli media.