- Filed
- September 12, 2026, 18:00 UTC
- Actor
- Explosive Media (Tehran), with RRM Canada open-source linkage via collaborator M. Taha Ansari Mohseri to Saeed Jalili's social-media apparatus at Iran's Supreme National Security Council
- Target
- English- and Farsi-speaking social-media users, especially Western and Global South audiences whose first picture of the 2026 U.S.-Israel-Iran war is a toy-style clip rather than a labeled state product
- Source
- Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- Confidence
- high Multiple independent open sources, low disagreement about the facts
- Techniques
- Synthetic mediaTransferNarrative launderingDisclosure theaterCard stackingWhataboutism
- Where
- Iran, United States, Persian Gulf
- Channels
- Explosive Media Telegram @ExplosiveMedia
- X account @ExplosiveMediaa
- Instagram, TikTok, Rumble, Threads and related short-form surfaces
- AI Lego-style one-minute vertical video
- Iranian and Russian state-media amplification on X
- cryptocurrency-donation independent-studio costume
- BBC Top Comment interview of 12 April 2026
Summary
Rapid Response Mechanism Canada, in an open-source assessment still on Global Affairs Canada's site this cycle, links Explosive Media, a Tehran-based outlet that publishes AI Lego-style war videos, to the Iranian state through a named collaborator on Saeed Jalili's social-media team. RRM Canada estimates at least 83 million global users saw the clips in the first month of the 2026 U.S.-Iran fighting and says the line is that Tehran has won the propaganda war in the Persian Gulf. On 12 April 2026 the BBC interviewed a representative who asked to be called Mr Explosive. He first repeated the shop's earlier claim that it is totally independent; under further questions he said the Iranian regime is a customer. The shop still presents as a small independent studio that takes cryptocurrency donations. This brief scores the method, not the underlying war claims.
Analysis
The load-bearing object this cycle is not another Claude planning desk already logged this date. It is a public video factory that used a children's-toy aesthetic to move a wartime line while performing as an independent studio.
Primary record splits in two. First, Rapid Response Mechanism Canada. The Global Affairs Canada page on Explosive Media, still live this watch, says RRM Canada directly linked the operation to the Iranian state through open-source analysis. The shop appeared on Telegram and Instagram on 25 June 2025, switched to English AI Lego-style videos on 7 March 2026, and pushed a line that Iran had won the propaganda war in the Persian Gulf. RRM Canada estimates at least 83 million global users viewed the videos in the first month of the U.S.-Iran conflict and treats 200 million as a higher bound because platforms removed copies. It assesses Explosive Media as likely linked to Saeed Jalili, Representative of the Supreme Leader at the Supreme National Security Council, through M. Taha Ansari Mohseri, a collaborator listed on a 17 March 2026 Instagram video who had worked on Jalili's 2024 campaign social-media team and later pointed Jalili audiences to Explosive Media. Score Jalili as likely, not as a signed ministry letterhead. Second, the BBC. On 12 April 2026, for the podcast Top Comment, a representative who asked to be called Mr Explosive first denied working for the government and repeated earlier language that the outlet is totally independent. Under further questioning he said the regime is a customer. He put the team at fewer than ten people and said they use Lego-style graphics because it is a world language. Iranian and Russian state-media accounts on X regularly share the clips. The Telegram channel @ExplosiveMedia and the X account @ExplosiveMediaa remain live surfaces.
Synthetic-media is the production line: machine-made minifigure war that is presented as witness rather than as a prompt. Transfer is the Lego look doing prestige and innocence work the claim cannot; a brick language reads as play, not as a customer deliverable. Narrative-laundering is the independent-studio and crypto-donation wrapper around a state customer. Disclosure-theater is the gap between the About-page independence line and the later customer admission, and between the Instagram byline and the clip that travels without it. Card-stacking is the pile that keeps collapsing Trump and Netanyahu statues, dying children, and missile banners, and drops denominators on Iranian losses, proxy conduct, or the shop's client. Whataboutism is the warrant structure in clips such as the 29 March 2026 Vengeance for All cut, reported by Al Jazeera on 17 April: Hiroshima, Abu Ghraib, enslaved Black Americans, and Iran Air 655 offered so the present war is never tried on its own facts.
This is propaganda where origin is blurred, institutional form is a toy studio, and the design goal is to move foreign belief that Iran won a narrative war. It is not a finding that every Lego-style clip in 2026 is a ministry product, or that U.S. or Israeli conduct in the war was clean. RRM Canada notes that Russian and Iranian state accounts supplied only a small share of early views; virality was real. A same-method test applies in reverse. A Western contractor that sold unlabeled toy-war videos, called itself independent, took crypto tips, and later conceded the Pentagon was a customer would be this brief with the nouns swapped.
Literacy counter: if a wartime clip arrives in a toy register with no ministry bug, treat the studio as a printer until a named payer survives a check. A customer admission in a later interview does not travel with the Reel. A collaborator who also works a Supreme National Security Council principal's social desk is a tell, not a cartoon. Apply the same toy-to-payer test when the bricks are painted in another flag.
Tells
- A wartime clip in a children's-toy register with no ministry or contractor bug on the frame the viewer sees
- An About line that says totally independent while a later interview names the regime as a customer
- A listed video collaborator who also works a Supreme National Security Council principal's social desk
- State-media accounts on X reprinting the same toy clip as if it were unaffiliated proof
- Historical atrocities used as the warrant so the present campaign is never measured on its own facts
- A donation wallet offered as the substitute for a payer
Evidence
- RRM Canada open-source assessment of Explosive Media and the Jalili collaborator trail
- BBC, 12 April 2026: Mr Explosive interview; independence claim then customer admission
- Explosive Media Telegram channel used as the shop's archive and contact surface
- Explosive Media X account @ExplosiveMediaa, bio as Iranian Lego-style animation team
- Al Jazeera, 17 April 2026: 29 March Vengeance for All clip and missile-banner inventory