--- title: Gulf state-linked Twitter networks and the 2017 Gulf rift information war (2014-2020) url: https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020/ description: Arabic-language Twitter audiences in the Gulf, Libya, Sudan and the wider region; English-language US policy and press audiences; Twitter's own staff and… section: Campaign dossiers --- ![Illustration: a dossier collage of a typewriter, drafted press releases and an annotated speech transcript.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/hero-write.jpg) [Campaigns](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/) # Gulf state-linked Twitter networks and the 2017 Gulf rift information war (2014-2020) [![First page of the US Supreme Court syllabus in Abouammo v. United States, decided 11 June 2026, describing the Twitter employee and the Saudi official](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-abouammo-scotus-opinion-2026.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-abouammo-scotus-opinion-2026.jpg) First page of the US Supreme Court syllabus in Abouammo v. United States, decided 11 June 2026, describing... [![Map of the Middle East with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt shaded orange and Qatar shaded green](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-qatar-rift-map-2017.png)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-qatar-rift-map-2017.png) Map of the Middle East with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt shaded orange and Qatar shaded green [![Page 3 of the Ninth Circuit opinion in Broidy Capital Management v. State of Qatar, filed 2 December 2020](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-broidy-v-qatar-ninth-circuit-2020.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-broidy-v-qatar-ninth-circuit-2020.jpg) Page 3 of the Ninth Circuit opinion in Broidy Capital Management v. State of Qatar, filed 2 December 2020 - **Actor:** Saudi-linked and UAE/Egypt-linked account networks as attributed by Twitter and Stanford Internet Observatory (run through the marketing firms Smaat, DotDev and, per Facebook, Maat), and Saudi officials named in a US criminal case; on the other side of the rift, Qatar's state-funded media and FARA-registered lobbying, plus allegations of Qatar-linked hack-and-leak activity that courts have not adjudicated - **Target:** Arabic-language Twitter audiences in the Gulf, Libya, Sudan and the wider region; English-language US policy and press audiences; Twitter's own staff and user data; Qatar, Turkey, Iran and Saudi critics as the named rivals - **Source:** Impersonated black to gray (black where personas posed as citizens of other countries or impersonated Qatari figures; gray for firm-run networks, state media and registered lobbying) - **Techniques:** [Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/) [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/) [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/) - **First seen:** 2014 (recruitment of a Twitter insider; the 2020 dataset holds pro-Haftar tweets from 2013); platform disclosures 2019 to 2020; rift 2017 to 2021 - **Status:** platform takedowns September 20, 2019, December 20, 2019, April 2, 2020 and October 9, 2020; rift formally ended January 5, 2021 (Al-Ula declaration); court proceedings last verified June 11, 2026 (US Supreme Court venue ruling in Abouammo) - **Related briefs:** none ## Mechanism The record has three layers of unequal strength. **Insider access (2014 to 2015).** The US Department of Justice charged that Saudi officials recruited two Twitter employees, Ahmad Abouammo and Ali Alzabarah, to read non-public data on users who criticised the government, through a go-between, Ahmed Almutairi. A jury convicted Abouammo in 2022 on six of eleven counts, including acting as an unregistered foreign agent. This is a surveillance channel, not a persuasion technique. It is included because Stanford reports that Almutairi co-founded Smaat, the firm Twitter later tied to the largest Saudi takedown. **Firm-run account networks (2013 to 2020).** Twitter attributed clusters to Smaat (Saudi Arabia) and DotDev (UAE and Egypt) and later linked them through shared accounts and images. Stanford's analysis of the April 2020 dataset found accounts claiming to be in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Morocco, Qatar and elsewhere that were "exceedingly and passionately patriotic to the point of being caricatures", while their main output was abuse of Turkey, Qatar and Iran. That is [Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/). The political posts were mixed with commercial and religious filler (loan repayment, cleaning companies, brand clients) and with "support groups" that follow and retweet each other. Hashtag pushes were timed to events, such as a Libyan commander's announcement of an offensive. Sympathetic outlets then wrote up the hashtags as evidence that Libyans opposed Turkey, although the hashtags had not gone viral. Stanford calls this hashtag laundering, and it combines [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/) with [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/). The content used [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) ("Sarraj the traitor of Libya") and [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/) (Iran, Qatar and Turkey blamed for terrorism, for a missing airliner and for COVID-19). **Rift-era narratives (2017 to 2020).** The rift began with fabricated quotes posted on the Qatar News Agency site on May 24, 2017 and ended with the Al-Ula declaration. The evidence differs by side. For the Saudi/UAE side, platforms attribute large networks and released the data. For Qatar, the documented activity is state-funded broadcasting and registered lobbying, plus allegations of covert hacking and leaking that Qatar denies and no court has decided. Scale is limited. Stanford counted 5,350 accounts and 36,523,977 tweets in the April 2020 dataset, a mean of 3,754 followers, most with a few hundred, and 12 above 500,000. Coordination is documented. Organic reach is not. ## Evidence Documented facts first, with the source that documents each. - **Twitter, September 20, 2019.** Twitter removed a UAE and Egypt network run by DotDev, described by Twitter as "a multi-faceted information operation primarily targeting Qatar, and other countries such as Iran" that also "amplified messaging supportive of the Saudi government" ([BleepingComputer](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/twitter-removes-state-backed-actors-conducting-information-campaigns/)). The count is reported as 267 ([CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/20/tech/twitter-suspends-accounts-saudi-al-qahtani/index.html)), 271 ([Stanford](https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/20200402_blame_it_on_iran_qatar_and_turkey_v2_0.pdf)) and 273 (BleepingComputer). CNN also reports 4,258 further UAE accounts tweeting mostly about Qatar and Yemen, six accounts posing as independent outlets but linked to Saudi state media, and the suspension of the account of Saud al-Qahtani, a former royal court adviser, for "violations of our platform manipulation policies". - **Twitter, December 20, 2019.** Twitter removed 88,000 accounts managed by Smaat and identified 5,929 as a state-backed operation amplifying messages favourable to Saudi authorities "mainly through aggressive liking, retweeting and replying" ([Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/20/twitter-removes-5929-saudi-accounts-it-deems-to-be-state-backed)). Al Jazeera is funded by the Qatari government (see below); the 88,000 figure matches Stanford's account. - **Stanford Internet Observatory, April 2, 2020.** Shelby Grossman, Khadija H., Renee DiResta, Tara Kheradpir and Carly Miller, ["Blame it on Iran, Qatar, and Turkey"](https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/20200402_blame_it_on_iran_qatar_and_turkey_v2_0.pdf): the source of the account and tweet counts above, the hashtag-laundering finding, the Smaat-to-DotDev link, and the QatariLeaks site, which presented itself as a WikiLeaks-style outlet and ran an article headed "Death haunts passengers of Qatar Airways" about a technical glitch. - **Twitter, October 9, 2020.** More than 30 Saudi-linked accounts spread rumours of a coup in Qatar, including fake statements attributed to human rights groups ([Middle East Eye](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/twitter-suspends-saudi-accounts-stoked-rumours-coup-qatar)). - **Marc Owen Jones, 2019.** In an open-access article Jones sampled hashtags from 2017 and 2018 and identified bot swarms by account-creation date; 234 accounts in one sample were created in April 2017, before the fake quotes, with biographies opposing the ruling family. He wrote that "it is difficult to determine exactly who is behind the bots". His employer was Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar ([International Journal of Communication 13](https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/8994)). His sample includes antisemitic and other abuse aimed at Qatar's government. - **US v. Abouammo.** Verdict August 9, 2022 on six of eleven counts ([DOJ, N.D. Cal.](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/united-states-v-ahmad-abouammo)); the Supreme Court summarised the facts as confidential data on Saudi dissidents given to a high-level Saudi official, who wired $300,000, and held on June 11, 2026 that the falsification count had to be tried in Seattle ([Abouammo v. United States](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-5146_e29f.pdf)). The effect on the other counts and the sentence was not verified. Twitter warned about 20 users in 2015 that state-sponsored actors may have targeted them ([TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/20/twitter-employee-saudi-state-sponsored-hacking-warning/)). The New York Times report of October 20, 2018 on a Saudi "troll army" under Saud al-Qahtani was not opened for this file. ![First page of the US Supreme Court syllabus in Abouammo v. United States, decided 11 June 2026, describing the Twitter employee and the Saudi official](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-abouammo-scotus-opinion-2026.jpg) *June 11, 2026, syllabus of Abouammo v. United States, No. 25-5146. Supreme Court of the United States, via supremecourt.gov.* ## Sides on the record **Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain.** They cut ties on June 5, 2017, accusing Qatar of supporting terrorism, and issued 13 demands that included closing Al Jazeera. Qatar rejected the accusations as "unjustified" and "baseless" ([CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/17/middleeast/uae-qatar-report)). Al Jazeera reported no immediate Saudi comment on the December 2019 takedown. Facebook said in October 2019, about a separate network targeting Iran and Qatar, that it had no evidence of a connection to the Emirati government ([BuzzFeed News](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/uae-propaganda)). **The Qatar News Agency hack.** Qatar said the quotes were planted. The Washington Post reported on July 16, 2017, citing US intelligence officials, that senior UAE officials discussed the plan on May 23, 2017 and that it was unclear whether the UAE carried out the hacks or paid for them ([Al Jazeera summary](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/7/17/uae-arranged-hacking-of-qatari-media-washington-post)). The UAE ambassador called the report "false" and added "What is true is #Qatar's behavior. Funding, supporting, and enabling extremists from the Taliban to Hamas & Qadafi" ([CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/17/middleeast/uae-qatar-report)). CNN reported that US investigators in June 2017 believed Russian hackers were responsible. Attribution remains contested and no public technical report exists. ![Map of the Middle East with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt shaded orange and Qatar shaded green](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-qatar-rift-map-2017.png) *Map of the states that cut ties with Qatar in 2017. Wikimedia Commons, user Ivebeenhacked, CC BY-SA 4.0.* **Qatar.** In September 2020 the US Justice Department told Al Jazeera's affiliate AJ+ to register under FARA, saying the Qatari government provides Al Jazeera's funding and appoints its board. Al Jazeera replied that the UAE had presented preconditions before the Abraham Accords and that hobbling Al Jazeera was among the blockade's conditions ([Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/17/al-jazeera-condemns-aj-fara-registration-order-in-us)). After the blockade Qatar hired more than two dozen FARA-registered firms by the end of 2018 ([Responsible Statecraft](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/05/20/how-the-qataris-conquered-dc-while-you-were-sleeping/)); a Quincy Institute report puts its FARA-registered spending since 2016 near $250 million and says Saudi Arabia and the UAE each spent nearly four times Qatar's amount in the year before the blockade ([Quincy Institute](https://quincyinst.org/research/soft-power-hard-influence-how-qatar-became-a-giant-in-washington/)). Lobbying registered under FARA appears in a public register. **Broidy litigation.** Elliott Broidy alleged that Qatari agents hacked his email and leaked it to the press. The Ninth Circuit dismissed the claim against Qatar on sovereign immunity (December 2, 2020, [opinion](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca9-18-56256/pdf/USCOURTS-ca9-18-56256-0.pdf)). The D.C. Circuit held on September 3, 2021 that US public relations contractors could not claim that immunity; the defendants did not acknowledge involvement, and Qatar had not said the conduct was at its behest ([opinion](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-caDC-20-07040/pdf/USCOURTS-caDC-20-07040-0.pdf)). Qatar's lawyers argued Broidy's forensics tied only an IP address in Doha to the hacks ([CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/18/politics/qatar-trump-broidy-email-lawsuit-pushback/index.html)). No court found the allegations proved. ![Page 3 of the Ninth Circuit opinion in Broidy Capital Management v. State of Qatar, filed 2 December 2020](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-broidy-v-qatar-ninth-circuit-2020.jpg) *December 2, 2020, opinion in Broidy Capital Management v. State of Qatar, No. 18-56256. US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, via govinfo.gov.* ![Page 2 of the D.C. Circuit opinion in Broidy Capital Management v. Muzin, filed 3 September 2021](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/gulf-state-twitter-networks-2014-2020-broidy-v-muzin-dc-circuit-2021.jpg) *September 3, 2021, opinion in Broidy Capital Management v. Muzin, No. 20-7040. US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, via govinfo.gov.* Compare [Facebook's April 2019 takedowns in India: a Congress IT cell, a BJP-linked IT firm and a Pakistani military network](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/), another platform-attributed network, and [Hamilton 68: the Russian-influence dashboard and its secret account list](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/hamilton-68-dashboard/), where researcher attribution of Twitter accounts was itself disputed. ## What would falsify this read Independent forensic work showing the Twitter datasets were misattributed, for example accounts run by real users organising openly; evidence that the hashtag pushes were organic; a public technical report placing the Qatar News Agency intrusion elsewhere; or, on the other side, a court finding or documents showing Qatari state direction of the Broidy hacking, which would add a covert layer to the Qatar record. Twitter's and Stanford's attributions rest on platform data that outside parties can check only in part. ## Literacy counter Treat a trending Arabic hashtag with patriotic profile text, commercial filler and near-identical images as unverified until independent accounts with history join it. Check whether news write-ups of a "trend" embed accounts that were later suspended. Apply the same test to every party: check who funds a broadcaster, whether a lobbyist appears in a registry, and whether an allegation of hacking has a court finding, an official attribution or only a claim. Read platform attributions with their published datasets and their limits (see [Platform interventions: labels, nudges, notes, friction and takedowns](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/platform-interventions/) and [Media literacy](https://propagandaarchive.org/learn/media-literacy/)). Look for a second source when a report comes from an outlet or researcher based in a party to the dispute, and say so when you cite one.