--- title: CENTCOM / Pentagon “gc_” newsroom network url: https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/centcom-gc-network/ description: Arabic- and Farsi-speaking audiences in the CENTCOM theater; secondary English-language feeds section: Campaign dossiers --- ![Illustration: a Cold War intelligence-briefing collage with the Kremlin, Eastern Bloc architecture and a reconnaissance map of Europe.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/hero-techniques.jpg) [Campaigns](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/) # CENTCOM / Pentagon “gc_” newsroom network [![General Michael Kurilla in Army uniform stands beside Secretary of State Marco Rubio in front of a U.S. Central Command flag and seal at CENTCOM headquarters](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/centcom-gc-network-centcom-hq-kurilla-rubio-2025.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/centcom-gc-network-centcom-hq-kurilla-rubio-2025.jpg) General Michael Kurilla in Army uniform stands beside Secretary of State Marco Rubio in front of a U.S.... [![Soldier in Army uniform briefing seated and standing visitors in an open-plan office of desks and monitors, with a sheet headed "PSYOP Process" pinned to a pillar at left](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/centcom-gc-network-webops-building-visit-2019.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/centcom-gc-network-webops-building-visit-2019.jpg) Soldier in Army uniform briefing seated and standing visitors in an open-plan office of desks and... [![Screenshot of a U.S. Central Command post on X, headed "CENTCOM Forces Defeat Houthi Attacks on U.S. Navy and U.S.-Flagged Ships in the Gulf of Aden", posted under the account name U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/centcom-gc-network-centcom-x-press-release-2024-12-10.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/centcom-gc-network-centcom-x-press-release-2024-12-10.jpg) Screenshot of a U.S. Central Command post on X, headed "CENTCOM Forces Defeat Houthi Attacks on U.S. Navy... - **Actor:** US Central Command and Department of Defense contractors; lineage through the Trans-Regional Web Initiative (TRWI) and post-2022 paid-reach sites - **Target:** Arabic- and Farsi-speaking audiences in the CENTCOM theater; secondary English-language feeds - **Source:** Unidentified gray (funding disclosed in a buried About page; not labeled as state media on social profiles) - **Techniques:** [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/) [Disclosure theater](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/disclosure-theater/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Synthetic media](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/synthetic-media/) [Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/) - **First seen (public research):** 2011–2022 TRWI / “Unheard Voice” (Stanford Internet Observatory / Graphika); 2023 launch of Al-Fassel and Pishtaz News; 2026 paid-reach analysis - **Status:** active as of September 10, 2026 - **Related briefs:** [Pentagon-linked Arabic and Farsi ‘newsrooms’ run gray propaganda via buried About-page disclosure and paid social reach](https://propagandaarchive.org/briefs/20260910-1900Z-centcom-gc-network/) ## Mechanism The pattern is newsroom camouflage plus attenuated disclosure plus bought distribution. Sites present as independent Middle Eastern outlets covering stories “often overlooked by local and regional media.” The operational content tracks US combatant-command talking points: Iran, Houthis, Hamas, Gulf partners, Gaza redevelopment. Named journalists and a physical newsroom are thin or absent. Social profiles do not carry a state-media label even where platform policy requires one. ![General Michael Kurilla in Army uniform stands beside Secretary of State Marco Rubio in front of a U.S. Central Command flag and seal at CENTCOM headquarters](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/centcom-gc-network-centcom-hq-kurilla-rubio-2025.jpg) *11 April 2025. CENTCOM commander General Michael Kurilla with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at CENTCOM headquarters, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida. Photo: Thomas Gagnier/CENTCOM, via U.S. Department of State, public domain.* Disclosure exists. It lives behind an About link: “a product of an international media organization publicly funded from the budget of the United States Government.” Earlier generations of the same family named CENTCOM. The newer language does not. That is disclosure theater: the legal or bureaucratic box is ticked; the audience that sees the clip does not receive the provenance. After the 2022 StanfordIO/Graphika report on covert CENTCOM personas (“Unheard Voice”), the surviving public surface shifted. Fake accounts had talked mostly to each other. The 2026 layer buys ads. Renée DiResta’s May 2026 Lawfare account of the `gc_` cluster (Al-Fassel, Pishtaz News, Entorno Diario and others) describes combined view-counts in the tens of millions on X, with Entorno Diario alone above 56 million views across a few hundred posts. Volume moved from persona spam to paid reach. Sam Biddle’s April 2026 Intercept investigation is the primary open-source identification of Al-Fassel (Arabic) and Pishtaz News (Farsi) as members of that family, including Lutz, Florida geotags near CENTCOM/SOCOM headquarters and social-graph proximity to official CENTCOM language accounts. ![Soldier in Army uniform briefing seated and standing visitors in an open-plan office of desks and monitors, with a sheet headed "PSYOP Process" pinned to a pillar at left](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/centcom-gc-network-webops-building-visit-2019.jpg) *18 June 2019. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo visits the WebOPS building at U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida; a soldier briefs the group. The State Department caption does not say what work was under way. Photo: Ron Przysucha/U.S. Department of State, public domain.* Synthetic media shows up as an AI-generated newscaster on at least one Instagram channel — the same cheap authenticity signal other states use on their own farms. This is scored as propaganda because origin is blurred, institutional form is performed, and the design goal is to move foreign belief under a journalism costume. Technique scoring does not depend on the flag. The same buried-disclosure + fake-institute / fake-newsroom + retrieval-or-reach optimization appears in the Hanover Institute dossier (Israeli contractors) and the SDA Projects 2026 dossier (Russian contractors). White public diplomacy — a labeled US government channel — would be a different object. ![Screenshot of a U.S. Central Command post on X, headed "CENTCOM Forces Defeat Houthi Attacks on U.S. Navy and U.S.-Flagged Ships in the Gulf of Aden", posted under the account name U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/centcom-gc-network-centcom-x-press-release-2024-12-10.jpg) *10 December 2024. A CENTCOM press release on its own X account, @CENTCOM, on Houthi attacks in the Gulf of Aden on 9-10 December: an official channel carrying the command's name, shown as the labeled counterpart to the `gc_` sites. Source: United States Central Command, public domain (US federal government work).* ## Evidence - Sam Biddle, *The Intercept*, 20 Apr 2026, “These Middle Eastern News Sites Are Actually U.S. Government Propaganda Operations” — https://theintercept.com/2026/04/20/pentagon-middle-eastern-news-propaganda-iran/ - Renée DiResta, *Lawfare*, 13 May 2026, “Fewer Bots, More Ads: The Pentagon’s Evolving Online Influence Campaigns” — https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/fewer-bots--more-ads--the-pentagon-s-evolving-online-influence-campaigns - Stanford Internet Observatory / Graphika, “Unheard Voice” (2022) — covert CENTCOM personas sharing combatant-command domains - Guardian, 30 Aug 2026 — State Department proposal to pay Southeast Asian influencers as part of an $11m counter-China public-diplomacy rebuild after GEC shutdown (adjacent white/gray activity, not the same network) — https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/30/state-department-global-engagement-center-leaked-documents-foreign-propaganda ## What would falsify this read Named, accountable newsrooms with independent editorial control; persistent, prominent, machine-readable state-media labels on every social surface; or a public CENTCOM/DoD statement that the sites are not US-funded and a showing that the About-page language is false. A labeled VOA/Radio Sawa-style outlet would move the color to white and take this dossier off the gray list. ## Literacy counter Treat Arabic- or Farsi-language “independent” outlets that (a) quote combatant-command press releases as a diet, (b) hide funding behind About, and (c) carry no state-media label on the clip, as provisional. Click About. Search FARA and contract vehicles. Prefer named correspondents who will pick up a phone. Demand provenance that travels with the video, not just the website. The same checklist applies to Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Qatari, and Israeli contractor newsrooms.