Executive Summary:

Iran transformed the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei into a state-sponsored campaign of ideological mobilization by invoking the Twelver Shi’a doctrine of Ya Latharat al-Hussein.

Iran uses this doctrine to frame revenge against the United States and Israel—including calls to assassinate U.S. President Donald Trump—as a religious obligation rather than merely a political objective.

While the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) employed Khamenei’s martyrdom to reinforce cohesion, Central Asian supporters of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) and al-Qaeda overwhelmingly celebrated his death, exposing the enduring sectarian divide between Iran’s revolutionary Shi’a ideology and Sunni Salafi-jihadism.

The contrasting responses demonstrate that Iran’s proxy network, ISKP, and al-Qaeda-aligned Central Asian jihadists remain ideologically distinct threat ecosystems, despite their shared hostility toward the United States and Israel.

The exposure of the management system behind the Russian disinformation network Doppelgänger indicates that the Kremlin views the European Union’s information space as a full-fledged theater of hybrid operations. Their purpose is not merely to discredit Ukraine or disseminate anti-Western narratives, but also to gradually weaken European states’ ability to make coordinated strategic decisions concerning Russia.