'Rivers of Blood Will Flow Through the Streets of Paris': Russia, Not Hamas, Behind Threatening Video – Microsoft

NBC News reports that a video circulating on platforms X and Telegram, in which a man, posing as a Hamas fighterthreatens the Paris Olympics, is part of a Russian disinformation campaign aimed at disrupting the event. According to the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, which analyzed the video at the request of NBC News, the video was created by a known Russian disinformation group.

Hamas spokesman Izzat al-Rishek denied involvement in the video, calling it a fake. In the video, a man with his face covered threatens in Arabic that “rivers of blood will flow in the streets of Paris” for France's support for Israel in the war against Hamas and for hosting Israeli athletes at the Olympics. He holds a mannequin head covered in red paint.

French authorities have assured the public that they have taken all possible security measures for the event, including deploying tens of thousands of security personnel. Microsoft has previously warned that Russia is trying to intimidate people from participating in the Games.

Microsoft researchers said the group behind the video was Storm-1516, known as a small but prolific offshoot of the Russian troll factory Internet Research Agency. The video was shared by several popular accounts known for their pro-Russian propaganda, some of which claimed it came from Israel.

“This operation closely matches the tactics, techniques, and procedures seen in previous Storm-1516 operations, including a previous video that also pretended to come from Hamas,” the Microsoft team said.

NBC News also found similarities between the new video and an earlier one about Ukraine that was released in October and identified by researchers at Clemson University as belonging to Storm-1516. The October video showed several men with their faces covered standing in front of a gray wall, one of whom thanked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a “new supply of weapons and military equipment.” The video promoted the false claim that Ukraine had provided military aid to Hamas, a claim that was echoed by Russian propagandists on social media.

In both videos, the person delivering the message stands in front of the same grey wall, wearing the same uniform, and begins his speech with the same invocation to God.

Microsoft researchers told NBC News that the Russia-linked Storm-1516 group uses tactics including creating videos in which actors claim a conspiracy, then posting the videos to new online accounts with small followings. The videos are then distributed via Telegram, X, and sites posing as local news portals, or through sponsored content on foreign news sites. Their goal is to reach a core audience in the West.

In June, Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center noted in a report that one of Russia’s goals is to create fear around the threat of violence at the Paris Olympics to “scare viewers away from attending the Games,” wrote Clint Watts, general manager of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center. The fake Hamas video first appeared Sunday on the X platform from an account called “Hamas fighter,” which was created in February and has posted only a few dozen times.

Darren Linville, a professor and director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, said the fake Hamas video was distributed through Kremlin-friendly Arab and French-West African news channels on Monday in what he called a “classic Russian placement and layering strategy.”

It circulated through pro-Russian accounts on Tuesday morning, first reposted by Simeon Boykov, an Australian propagandist for Russian President Putin who lives in the Russian consulate in Sydney and posts online under the pseudonym “Aussie Cossack.” It was then spread by pro-Russian Telegram channels including Voice of Mordor, which has 169,000 subscribers, citing Arabic-language media outlets.

Two hours after it was posted by Aussie Cossack, it was shared by Pravda-En, a well-known Russian propaganda channel. The link is no longer active.

Some of these accounts claimed that the video may have been created by Israel, an accusation also made by Hamas spokesman al-Rishek. There is no evidence that the video was created by Israel.

By midday, the video had been shared on X nearly 4,000 times, according to PeakMetrics, a company that tracks online threats.

Grok, Elon Musk's AI model on X that wrestles with the task of curating news without introducing misinformation and unsubstantiated claims, summarized the post as a trending topic, misattributing the video to Hamas and adding: “The threat has sparked widespread concern and calls for increased security measures to ensure the safety of the event.”

“Grok can make mistakes, check his results,” warned a tag attached to the trending post.

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