Europe takes 14,200 Iran propaganda posts linked to Revolutionary Guard across social media
European law enforcement agencies have dismantled a major propaganda operation run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Officers across 19 countries took down thousands of posts on social media accounts and streaming services which were spreading terrorist content.
The campaign focused on what investigators describe as a sophisticated propaganda ecosystem operating across mainstream social media platforms, streaming services, blogs, and websites.
The operation took place between February 13th and April 28th and targeted a total of 14,200 online messages linked to the IRGC in several languages, including Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, English, French, Persian, and Spanish. Statements and videos produced by proxy groups and aligned entities, including Hezbollah, Ansar Allah, Hamas, PIJ, and HAYI, were taken down as well.
The content varied from hate speeches blending religious martyrdom narratives with highly charged political messages to AI-generated videos glorifying the IRGC and calls to avenge Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death.
The law enforcement authorities also identified cryptocurrency transactions that were most likely used to fund parts of the propaganda campaign and maintain the IRGC’s hosting infrastructure.
A total of 19 countries participated in the operation to disrupt IRGC-linked content across the internet, including Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United States of America.
Europol coordinated all activities during the operation, such as collecting intelligence, cross-checking targets, and carrying out joint referrals to online platforms.
According to Reuters, the operation follows the EU’s decision to formally designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization earlier this year, marking a major shift in European policy toward Tehran. The designation placed the paramilitary organization alongside groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda under EU counterterrorism rules.
“Repression cannot go unanswered. EU Foreign Ministers just took the decisive step of designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise,” Kaja Kallas, European Union Foreign Policy Chief, wrote on X.