Rozina Sabur
Deputy US Editor
26 September 2024 12:45pm
Iran is targeting African-American voters and Muslims in the critical state of Michigan in an attempt to sway the US election against Donald Trump, according to a new report.
Tehran’s attempts to influence the outcome of the Nov 5 White House race include duping Americans into consuming Iranian propaganda disguised as legitimate news outlets, according to the investigation, by the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank.
The report asserts that the Islamic republic was attempting to reach key voting groups, among them African Americans, veterans, Hispanic groups, and Muslims in Michigan, for the 2024 campaign.
The FDD spotlighted the Westland Sun, an English-language online outlet designed to cater to readers in Muslim-majority suburbs near Detroit.
Michigan is one of six key election battlegrounds, and home to the largest Arab-American population in the country.
Joe Biden narrowly carried the state in 2020 in part thanks to Arab and Muslim Americans, but their anger over the administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza has left Democrats concerned they could deny Kamala Harris victory.
According to the report by the FDD, the website “focuses on issues of concern to Muslim Americans, specifically those in Michigan, and publishes extensively on the US election, typically criticising conservatives and praising progressive candidates”.
One article highlights Mr Biden’s outreach to Muslim and Arab Americans in Dearborn. Others cover US policy towards Iran with a “pro-regime slant”, the report said.
Max Lesser, a senior analyst at the FDD and the report’s co-author, said it appeared to be the first time Iran had targeted Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan specifically.
“Their primary goal from what we’re seeing is to promote Harris and denigrate Trump,” he told The Telegraph.
A second website identified by the FDD is Afromajority.com, which targets African-American voters with content that is often critical of former president Trump and sympathetic to Ms Harris.
The website spotlights liberal policies and backs the Black Lives Matter movement. Its pro-Harris objective is “pretty clear”, said Mr Lesser.
It also frames Iran in a positive light, with one article describing how Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, has backed US student protests in “an embrace of the shared struggle for justice”.
In targeting specific demographics and regions, the Iranian regime has shown itself to be very “savvy” in its understanding of the dynamics of the 2024 race, according to Mr Lesser.
“It’s not just the Iranians trying to reach black voters, it’s political parties who recognise this is a critical voting bloc,” he said.
While the various websites target a range of groups, the researchers said there were indicators they were all outlets for Iranian-backed propaganda, such as the fact they use the same web hosting servers and patterns in the email addresses of the creators of several of the domains.
“These websites also typically attribute content to unnamed staff authors, rather than specific writers,” the report noted.
They include Lalinearoja.net, a Spanish-language news website that regularly publishes election-related content while promoting anti-American, anti-Israeli and pro-Iranian content.
In all, the think tank’s report identified at least 19 websites it asserts were created by the Iranian regime that had been made to appear as legitimate news outlets.
Eight of the websites are English-language and focus on the US election.
While most of the US-focused news websites support liberal and progressive candidates, two promote more conservative views.
‘Conspiratorial content’
The latter includes “conspiratorial content” and some articles are critical of Iran, with analysts speculating this may be an effort by the Islamic republic to cover its tracks.
Mr Lesser noted that Iran’s “secondary goal” in its election-meddling efforts is to increase the country’s “polarisation” by undermining Americans’ trust in their democratic institutions.
US officials have previously warned that Tehran’s efforts to meddle in the White House race are growing more aggressive as they target the Trump campaign.
The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a rare joint statement warning that Iran’s measures to “stoke discord” have increased because the regime believes the 2024 elections will be “particularly consequential” for its domestic policies.
It is unclear whether the actions are motivated by a desire for revenge for the assassination of one of Iran’s top generals, Qasem Soleimani, during Trump’s first term in power, or more strategic aims given the Republican’s continued hardline stance on Iran.
Over the summer, it was revealed Iran-backed hackers had successfully targeted the Trump campaign.
Members of the Republican candidate’s inner circle were targeted by phishing attempts. The stolen material — including sensitive internal documents — was later sent by the hackers to reporters at major US news outlets.
This week, Trump revealed he had been briefed by US intelligence on “big threats on my life by Iran.”
“Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again,” he said.
Efforts to reach the Westland Sun and Afromajority.com were unsuccessful. Lalinearoja.net was approached for comment.
Tehran has previously denied claims of interfering in America’s domestic affairs.
The post Revealed: How Iran could be interfering in US election to undermine Trump appeared first on The Telegraph.
