Tehran’s alleged effort to develop nuclear weapons has been the key reason cited by US President Trump and Israel govt for the war on Iran. In recent weeks, amid stop-start peace efforts, the hawkish narrative got a significant boost from a fake quote first posted by an Indian X handle, which then raced through Tel Aviv-Washington political and diplomatic circles, right up to PM Benjamin Netanyahu and White House.“Alert,” the account, @RealBababanaras, posted on Aug 5, “While world is expecting peace, IRGC Chief Ahmad Wahidi again threatened -‘There will be no talk on Enriched Urenium (sic) or nuclear weapons, as long as US & Israel are owning nuclear weapons, we will keep working on it for national security. If they dispose, we will dispose.” This reference was to Brig Gen Ahmad Vahidi, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and one of Iran’s powerful military figures.In less than two hours, another India-based account, @Im_Ritikaa, posted a paraphrased version in Hindi.
Neither cited any sources. An Israeli news outlet, YNet, and The New York Times have since reported that there is no evidence this statement was ever made by Vahidi. But the posts on Indian X had already found resonance in Israeli media. By the afternoon of Aug 5, Mossad Commentary, a prominent Israeli account (but not affiliated with Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad), published the fake statement with a comment: “The regime is not preparing to abandon its nuclear ambitions. It is buying time. There will be no deal.” The post was seen more than 300,000 times by Aug 17.About half an hour later, Israeli broadcaster Channel 14 English posted it as news, with its own comment: “This is the first time an Iranian official has admitted to developing a nuclear bomb.” The post had almost 450,000 views at the time of filing this report.By evening, Israel PM Netanyahu’s son Yair had reposted both. From there, the claim made a short leap to Netanyahu’s podium. At a state ceremony in Jerusalem honouring the family of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, Netanyahu presented it as fact. “Today we heard Revolutionary Guards commander Vahidi explicitly declaring Iran’s intention to continue to develop nuclear weapons,” he said. “Continue! That is what he said. Well, as prime minister of Israel, I too am determined to continue preventing Iran from possessing nuclear weapons.”Within minutes, US ambassador to UN, Mike Waltz, reposted the claim – as did American Conservative commentator Mark Levin and Republican senator Rick Scott later. By the night of Aug 5, it had made its way to Fox News (which clarified later the claim had been “taken out of context and amplified”).The actual Vahidi comment, it said, was based on one made in 2025 – that Iran’s position on nuclear weapons had been transparent, and Iran was “ready to do whatever it deems necessary in response to their (the US’s and Israel’s) repeated aggression”.So, how did an anonymous Indian account become the cited source for the Israeli information ecosystem? This was, incidentally, not the first time material had travelled between @RealBababanaras and Mossad Commentary. In at least two posts this year after Iran war began – one reporting continuing explosions in Iran after a US strike as evidence that missiles were stored there, and another which reported a US strike on an alleged uranium-enrichment and nuclear research facility – it cited @RealBababanaras as the source.As early as April, a month and a half after the US and Israel began air strikes in Iran, @RealBababanaras posted Tehran was preparing for its “first official nuclear test within weeks”. Days later, @FalconUpdatesHQ, which has over 150,000 followers and claims in its bio to be based in Kerala, echoed that, claiming Iran was preparing to conduct its first official nuclear test within a month. The claim was recycled by @Im_Ritikaa in May.Earlier this year, Yonatan Hassidim, CEO of an Israeli firm that monitors and analyses online and social activity, said in an Israeli parliamentary hearing that about 70% of accounts sharing Netanyahu’s posts in their sample were not Israelis at all. “That is to say, an Indian account shares a video of the Israeli prime minister speaking in Hebrew. Within 12 seconds, it has already understood that this item interests it – it apparently understands Hebrew – and shares it,” he had said, before citing the example of an Indian account that “tweets more than 165,000 tweets a year”.
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“So these are high volumes, and this is some kind of average account,” he added, “We have seen ones with 300,000 a year and more as well.”The loop is still active. On Aug 17, when US president Donald Trump posted on Truth Social the “no. 1 goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon”, @RealBababanaras repackaged this for its audience as a reaction “after Iran refused handing over enriched uranium and halting nuclear programme”.
