AI giant says UAE-linked operation used its chatbot against Muslim Brotherhood
Anthropic's report describes a campaign that deployed Claude to run covert global drive against movement, complete with fake NGOs and ghost-written UN testimony
WASHINGTON (MNTV) — A covert influence operation that a U.S. artificial-intelligence company links to United Arab Emirates officials used its Claude chatbot to run a sustained global campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood — fabricating a human-rights NGO, ghost-writing testimony for the United Nations, and profiling European lawmakers and journalists — according to a report from the company, Anthropic.
The case is one of nine influence operations detailed in Anthropic’s threat-intelligence report, published Sept. 10, which examines misuse of its AI models between December 2025 and August 2026.
Because the findings come from the company whose product was used, they reflect Anthropic’s own investigation and attribution; the firm said it banned the account, strengthened its safeguards, and shared intelligence with partners.
It assessed the operation with “high confidence” to be directed by UAE government officials, noting that an internal doctrine file named senior UAE figures as the intended recipients of the work.
The UAE has not publicly responded, and the claims could not be independently verified.
According to the report, a single operator used Claude to sustain an AI persona, dubbed “Deadshot,” built around a standing instruction to pursue “a coordinated transatlantic and regional operation to dismantle the Muslim Brotherhood globally.”
The campaign ran across five synchronized tracks: a network of about 300 fake social-media influencer accounts; a front NGO that copied the identity of a real Swiss human-rights organization to publish state-authored reports; ghost-written testimony engineered for delivery at the UN Human Rights Council — worded so that neither speech mentioned the UAE; detailed personal dossiers on 18 members of the European Parliament and prominent journalists; and “counter-accountability” files on UN special rapporteurs who had criticized the UAE’s conduct in Sudan’s war.
The operation, Anthropic said, took the operator’s own political doctrine files and used Claude to turn them into official-looking intelligence briefs, cloned-identity reports, ghost-written testimony, and profiled target lists, several prepared for direct delivery to senior UAE officials.
Internal materials, it added, described the amplification network’s apparent “independence” as its “greatest strategic asset” — an admission it was designed to conceal state direction.
In one instance, the operator borrowed the identity of a real Sudanese rights group to submit UN testimony as though from an independent local witness rather than a party to the Sudan conflict.
Anthropic rated the campaign’s reach at a mid-level “Category Three,” saying it could not confirm whether the testimonies or dossiers reached their intended audiences or shaped any policy.
The Muslim Brotherhood is banned as a terrorist organization by the UAE and several allied governments but operates legally as a political and social force in many countries.
The episode, rights advocates note, illustrates how AI tools can let a single operator cheaply mimic the output of an entire state propaganda office, cloaking government messaging as independent civil-society voices in international forums.
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