US Military Supports Arab Regimes with Information Operations, Leaked Documents Reveal

American military officials have been actively helping Middle Eastern allies control their information environments, according to confidential documents revealed by The Washington Post through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The leaked materials expose how the United States has assisted authoritarian regimes in the region with propaganda efforts while maintaining close military partnerships.

The documents detail the “Regional Security Construct,” a covert U.S.-led coalition that includes Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Kuwait and Oman were identified as “potential partners” who received briefings about coalition activities.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) officials have been leading meetings focused on “information operations” designed to counter Iranian narratives about Palestinian protection and to “propagate [a] partner narrative of regional prosperity and cooperation,” according to planning documents extending into 2025.

The revelations come amid increasing U.S. military cooperation with Gulf states. The U.S. has pursued a NATO-like defense pact with Saudi Arabia—the world’s largest buyer of American weapons—across both Democratic and Republican administrations. Last month, the Trump administration pledged to defend Qatar and subsequently announced a new training facility for Qatari military pilots in Idaho.

More concerning is the planning for expanded information control capabilities. American officials advocated creating a “Combined Middle East Cyber Center” and an “Information Fusion Center” to help coalition members “rapidly plan, execute, and assess operations in the information environment”—terms that suggest sophisticated propaganda and narrative control efforts.

Many of these partner nations have troubling human rights records, particularly regarding internet freedom. Arab states in the coalition have increasingly used online surveillance as a tool for domestic control. Critics in these countries have reportedly faced severe punishment—including torture and death sentences in Saudi Arabia—simply for social media posts critical of their governments.

Despite acknowledging such repression in its own human rights reports, the U.S. government has continued providing advanced online surveillance training to these regimes. In 2023, the State Department reported that Bahrain maintained “serious restrictions on internet freedom” and classified opposition to the monarchy as “terrorist acts.” Yet in 2024, the State Department trained Bahraini police on tracking “operations, recruiting, and disinformation” by “terrorists” on social media.

When questioned about such cooperation, the State Department has insisted that trainees are “vetted for human rights violations in accordance with U.S. law” and that human rights concerns are “consistently raised” with partner governments.

Evidence suggests U.S. information operations in the Middle East may be more extensive than officially acknowledged. In 2022, The Intercept published internal Twitter documents revealing that CENTCOM operated fake accounts promoting Saudi Arabia’s war efforts in Yemen. Other leaked materials indicated that the U.S. military spread disinformation, including false rumors about Iranian doctors stealing organs and Chinese vaccines containing pork.

The exact scope of CENTCOM’s planned information operations for the Regional Security Construct remains unclear due to the coalition’s secretive nature. Documents obtained by the Post emphasized that cooperation must be kept “in confidence” and explicitly forbade photography of meetings or journalist access.

These revelations highlight the scale of U.S. military propaganda efforts globally. For fiscal year 2026, the Defense Department has requested over $209 million for military information support operations from Congress. It appears inevitable that a portion of these funds will help Middle Eastern autocrats strengthen their control over the information landscape in their countries.