A foreign agent in Australia is a linchpin in a disinformation operation aimed at disrupting the Paris Olympics, experts say.
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A video showing an Arabic-speaking man with his face masked in a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf threatening attacks at the games was posted by the Aussie Cossack account on X, formerly Twitter, and Telegram on Tuesday.
The man behind the accounts, Simeon Boikov, is a registered foreign agent who has previously posted false claims that have been debunked by AAP FactCheck.
He has lived at Russia's consulate in Sydney - where AAP has attempted to contact him in relation to this matter - since being charged with an assault at a 2022 protest.
Boikov's posts claim it is a Hamas video, but the Palestinian Islamist group denies responsibility for the clip and calls it a "fabrication".
Experts say the video is not authentic and is part of a Russian disinformation operation.
Karima Laachir, director of the ANU Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, said the man's Arabic was dreadful.
"The person speaking does not know the Arabic language and is barely able to stitch the sentence together," she told AAP.
Ben Rich, a lecturer in Middle Eastern politics and online extremism at Curtin University, said the video was strikingly different from official Hamas videos.
He said the visual elements and the content contradicted the Palestinian group's usual style of trying to present itself as a legitimate state entity.
"This one feels more like something designed to scare Western audiences and trade on stereotypes of scary Semitic ninjas with AKs and fingers raised, not something that has come out of Gaza," Dr Rich said.
"I'm also not aware of any threats of transnational violence against the West by Hamas thus far. Targeting France would also be a strange choice, given Paris has raised continual concern for the Palestinians."
Microsoft researchers have linked the video to a Russian-linked disinformation operation that was behind a similar video falsely linking Ukraine's government with Hamas, according to US broadcaster NBC.
Darren Linvill, director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University in the US, said there was "no question" that Russia was behind the video, which featured the same actor and backdrop as the Ukraine video.
Like the previous video, the clip was first posted on West African and Arab news websites before being shared on social media by pro-Russian users including Boikov, he said.
"There have been about 40 narratives (mostly anti-Ukrainian) that have been laundered in this way," Professor Linvill said.
Albert Zhang, a disinformation analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, suggested Russia was trying to interfere in the Olympics because its athletes had been banned from competing under the country's flag due to its invasion of Ukraine.
He said anything posted on social media by Boikov should be considered misinformation unless it was verified.
"Everyone is aware that he is an agent for the Russian government," he said.
Australian Associated Press
