Pak Sahafat – 2017 should be called the turning point of cyber wars in the world; Exactly the same year that Trump travels to Saudi Arabia, and together with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and General Abdel Fattah Sisi, the president of Egypt, they establish the Central Center in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, under the title of “Moderation Center”.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency, the year 2017 should be called the turning point of cyber wars in the world. Exactly the same year that Trump travels to Saudi Arabia and together with King Salman, the King of Saudi Arabia and General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, the President of Central Egypt, they establish the Center of Moderation in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of setting up this center is to fight against extremism, and according to the Saudi officials, it operates in three areas related to information technology, analysis and data mining. The Persian service of the official news agency of the Saudi regime, known as the Saudi News Agency, introduces this center as follows: “The International Counter-Terrorism Center of Meadaran is one of the results of the efforts of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud and the leaders of the world countries to fight terrorism using modern technology. The Moderation Center is a symbol of a new and advanced stage of fighting extremism through intellectual, cultural and strengthening coexistence and peace between nations. This center will become a main and important reference for fighting terrorism through examining and analyzing extremist thoughts and providing various guidelines and programs. Moderation has the main infrastructure for success, which is equipped with advanced technology to fight extremism in social networks and Internet sites, among them, and can monitor and analyze any extremist content on the Internet with new software. This center operates in different languages and seeks to institutionalize the concepts of moderate Islam, peaceful coexistence and discredit the propaganda of extremist and terrorist groups.” In this report, we will have a look at the activities of this center and its role in the combined war against Iran. According to JamJam, this short definition from the Saudi News Agency includes several important and vital keywords that a careful look at it can reveal the secrets of this mysterious center. With advanced technology to fight extremism in social networks and internet sites, it has the ability to monitor and analyze any extremist content on the internet in different languages and seeks to institutionalize the concepts of moderate Islam and peaceful coexistence. In fact, the Moderation Center, in cooperation with the United States, has gathered a network of technology under one roof so that with an organized and coordinated work, they can disrupt the moderation of the modern world, which is based on technology, information and the Internet, for the benefit of arrogant powers. This is not a claim arising from a fanatical ideology, but a fact, for a better understanding, it is suggested to read the rest of this report.
Advanced technology at the moderation center
When talking about advanced technology in the world, the names of three people immediately come to mind in this field; Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Mask; He was born in South Africa and lives in America. The owner of Twitter and SpaceX dreams of building an array of thousands of Starlink satellites to solve the problem of internet access on Earth. Zuckerberg; He is an American citizen and the owner of “Meta” company. This company is known as the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Gates; Owner of Microsoft Corporation. When these three names are placed next to each other, the nature of the network mentioned above becomes more visible and takes on the color of reality. In fact, the Saudi News Agency has correctly stated that the Center for Moderation with advanced technology and monitoring and analyzing the activities of users in cyberspace with the help of Americans seeks to deal with the growth and development of resistance movements around the world through cyberspace. Giving direction to Islam and Muslims, the main goal of the Center for Moderation, a noteworthy point and goal that the Saudi news agency has pointed out and should not be easily overlooked, is to define a specific type of Islam with the wording of “institutionalizing the concepts of moderate Islam”. So up to now and based on the claim of the founders of the Saudi Moderation Center, this center is seeking to define and promote its preferred Islam by gathering all the technological capacities of the world. The proof of this claim is the birth date of the center of moderation; Just when the region and the Middle East are busy celebrating the defeat of ISIS as extremist Islamists, a center with the claim of confronting extremism and with the aim of institutionalizing the concepts of moderate Islam by the supporters of extreme Islamism opens its eyes to the world.
What is the strategy of moderation center?
The strategic goals foreseen in this center are mainly focused on psychological operations against non-aligned groups and rehabilitation of aligned groups with the aim of promoting the desired thoughts and opinions and are set to create propaganda and media pressure on international institutions to force them to take action against opposing groups. Due to the black history of the Saudi regime in establishing and leading extremist groups with takfiri ideas, the center of moderation under the strategic document known as the Bin Salman reforms has a special mission regarding the purification of this regime. Therefore, the destructive activities of this center are carried out under the cover of seemingly moderate cultural activities.
The beginning of the missions of the moderation center with 3 operational measures
Since its birth, the moderation center has started its mission around three important axes;
The first step is to discover the talent of the extremist forces in the region to deal with the idea of resistance:
Capability hunting was a problem for which many efforts were made. In the center of moderation, regardless of religion and ethnicity, every person who had a grudge against resistance thinking or every intellectual who was ready to oppose Iran was monitored and attracted by various tricks. For some, media training courses were held, many of which had no direct connection with the moderation center and were only planned to cultivate the desired force. Only in the first two years of monitoring by the moderation center, by accepting one hundred foreign visiting delegations from 30 countries and 40 international organizations, establishing cooperation and partnership with non-governmental organizations, charitable institutions, universities, religious associations, establishing representative offices in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa and the creation of information banks on the subject of extremist groups and propaganda and media centers prepared a significant population for the start of the intended war. The Saudi Cyber Army first presented itself as a flamboyant peace-minded center, but now, almost six years after its birth; it has officially become a fully military base and has lined up various groups of fighters for itself.
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Second action) attack on the credibility of the resistance axis in virtual space and social networks:
Maybe hashtagging is considered a simple and common thing, but even by recognizing the weak points and small gaps in the countries of the region, it focuses the people’s grievances towards those points so that the gunpowder of the grievances can quickly turn into a huge explosion by means of seasonings called hashtags. To understand this, it is better to look at the events of the last five years in the region. Protests of the people of Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. All of them have many fundamental similarities with each other. An explosion in the port of Beirut is a good excuse to start a war of discontent in Lebanon. When Lebanese people turn to social networks to read the news and communicate with their loved ones, they notice that people keep repeating one or more words on social networks, just like the slogans that are chanted in street protests, and this is the same power. Now all the people of the society are connected to the invisible ropes in Saudi hands for a certain movement! This virtual bombing was experienced many times in Iraq. The necessary materials are the same in Iraq. Discovering popular discontent, relative solidarity with an opposition party, and finally creating a connection in cyberspace and social networks to announce a widespread protest.
Third action) observation, analysis and in-depth analyzes using a powerful artificial intelligence
Perhaps it can be said that the most important side of the three measures of the moderation center is this step. Analysis in this war was as valuable as having guided missiles. For this war, the moderation center needed to make the dark and cluttered space of social networks clear and clear. Predictability is the biggest and most important possibility that can win one side in the war, but this possibility was not within the capacity of the moderation center and Saudi Arabia. Now it was time to fulfill the promise that the Americans had made to Saudi Arabia. The Moderation Center, with the full coordination of the American Internet Association, i.e. Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Amazon, as well as the special access created for this center, is continuously monitoring and analyzing the content of users in social networks to discover the intellectual tendencies of important goals and subjects. It should be mentioned that this technology is sealed and its results are provided to them only for observation and use without the intervention and application of any native power of the center of moderation. In the meantime, the Moderation Center will also benefit from the best and most up-to-date media war strategies and tactics. This package is so precise that it plans even for a simple citizen in a remote village to create the biggest mess for its target community with the highest level of dispersion. Analytics guide behaviors bit by bit with the help of strategies and tactics just like an orchestra conductor. Which instrument should be high or low, when each musician should play or when and how the rhythms should be fast and slow.
And now the operation!
All these measures are in the service of the executive department of the moderation center, which after exchanging information with Hebrew-Western employers and developing operational scenarios, has just started working and is conducting psychological operations based on the received instructions. Among the most important operations of this center from the beginning of its establishment until now, is the virtual management of street riots and the destruction of public trust in the ruling systems in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran in 2017 and 2018, which has played a role in the context of social networks as an auxiliary arm of the main media of the anti-resistance movement. Traces of the main suspect of Khashoggi’s murder in the management of the Moderation Center, one of the remarkable points about this so-called center that combats extremist thoughts is the strong presence of a person named Saud al-Qahtani.
But who is Saud al-Qahtani?
Qahtani is a Saudi journalist in appearance, most of the cyber and internet activities of the Saudi regime during the time of Mohammed bin Salman were carried out under the supervision of this security element close to the crown prince, and the Moderation Center is no exception to this rule. The official title of his position was “General Inspector of the Media Studies and Affairs Center”, but Al-Qahtani’s activities are not limited to cyber and internet affairs.
Saud bin Abdullah bin Salem bin Muhammad bin Qasim al-Wahhabi al-Qahtani (born on June 7, 1978) is a former advisor to the Saudi court and a native of Saudi Arabia. He was the legal adviser of Malek Abd… and the media adviser of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but after the case of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi as the main suspect, in 2018, under the pressure of the Turkish government and inevitably
He was fired from this position! Al-Saud’s Secret Revealer Mujtahid introduces Al-Qahtani as follows: Saud Al-Qahtani’s role in Saudi Arabia has not ended despite his disappearance from the political scene after his participation in the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi critic, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Last year, the Democracy Organization for the Arab World emphasized in an extensive report that Saud al-Qahtani killed other Saudi exiles abroad and tortured female human rights activists in a secret Saudi prison. Al-Qahtani has also participated in surveillance operations and hacking of Saudi journalists and human rights activists.
Abdullah Al-Oudeh, director of the Persian Gulf region in the Dawn organization, says about Al-Qahtani: He is the loyal executor of Bin Salman’s orders regarding the use of domestic and international violence. If you want to understand who Muhammad bin Salman is, look at the traces of killing, torture and oppression that Al-Qahtani left behind.
Why is the moderation center important?!
All these contents were expressed for two specific audiences; People and officials. Both audiences should know very well that today the Islamic Republic of Iran is in the middle of a big media and cyber war. People should believe that in cyberspace they are under a large volume of true and false information bombardment by biased institutions such as the Center for Moderation and they must increase their level of media literacy and analysis for the health of their souls and minds so that everything they see in cyberspace do not believe. On the other hand, the officials should accept and believe that in this great battle, they are required to comply with the rules of this new war and prepare the necessary facilities and infrastructures to immediately deal with this all-out battle.