An institutional intelligence assessment of British strategic communications, concealed sponsorship, contractor-mediated information operations, media independence and the geopolitical consequences of the coalition’s military withdrawal.

Executive Summary — Bottom Line Up Front

The conclusion of the international coalition’s military mission in Iraq on 30 September 2026 represents a change in the instruments of British influence rather than the termination of Britain’s strategic involvement in the country. The United Kingdom has explicitly confirmed that it will continue coordinating communications against Islamic State propaganda while developing a bilateral defence partnership with Baghdad.

Historical British government records establish that London developed an organised counter-Islamic State communications capability, supported by public funding, multinational coordination and relationships with regional governmental and civil-society organisations. The British government stated in 2016 that it had committed £10 million to establish the Counter-Daesh Coalition Communications Cell.

Disclosed contractor material concerning the Iraqi digital platform Yalla describes an additional and more sensitive dimension: the alleged use of locally credible media channels, commercially organised production networks and concealed foreign sponsorship to influence public attitudes. The material identifies purported British programme spending of £4.3 million in 2019/20 and an additional £4 million budget for 2020/21. These programme-specific amounts have not been independently reconciled against an authenticated government contract or expenditure ledger.

The principal strategic finding is that the provenance of political communication is itself a component of national sovereignty. A foreign-financed campaign may promote entirely legitimate objectives, including resistance to violent extremism and social reconciliation, while simultaneously compromising audience autonomy if its sponsor or editorial authority is deliberately concealed.

Three conclusions follow. First, the official British communications infrastructure is documented; individual contractor arrangements require separate verification. Second, the ethical and institutional consequences cannot be determined solely by whether published messages were true or false. Third, the coalition’s withdrawal creates a new requirement for transparency, democratic oversight and clearly defined limits on foreign-sponsored communications inside Iraq.

The decisive unresolved question is not simply whether Britain financed media activity in Iraq, but who exercised editorial control, what audiences understood about sponsorship, and which operational arrangements remain in force after September 2026.

Europe’s Nuclear Deterrence in Transition: Franco-British Coordination, Russian Perceptions and Strategic Stability in 2025

Britain’s Invisible Power in Iraq: The Military Has Withdrawn, but the Battle for Influence Remains

Britain’s post-coalition relationship with Iraq exposes a fundamental contradiction in modern foreign policy: military withdrawal can restore visible sovereignty while leaving externally financed communications networks, private contractors and mechanisms of political influence beyond effective public scrutiny.

On 30 September 2026, the United Kingdom announced the conclusion of the Global Coalition’s military mission in Iraq, yet the Ministry of Defence simultaneously confirmed that London would continue coordinating communications against Islamic State propaganda. The distinction captures the central issue in Britain’s post-war engagement: the withdrawal of military personnel does not terminate the institutional capacity to influence the society in which they operated. Historical contractor material concerning the Iraqi digital platform Yalla describes British-financed communications designed to shape public attitudes through locally credible media, while leaving substantial questions about sponsorship and editorial control unresolved. Britain’s challenge is no longer simply to justify its security presence, but to demonstrate that its remaining influence serves identifiable public purposes under accountable authority. For Baghdad, the stakes concern sovereignty, independent journalism and the political legitimacy of international assistance.

The withdrawal removes soldiers, not the machinery of influence

The September 2026 announcement concluded a military arrangement rooted in the campaign against Islamic State, but it preserved several channels through which Britain intends to exercise strategic influence. Operation SHADER remains part of British counterterrorism policy, while the bilateral defence partnership includes military education, capability development and prospective defence-industrial cooperation. The continued British coordination of anti-Islamic State communications places information activity within this enduring institutional relationship rather than treating it as a temporary function of the departing coalition.

That continuity reflects a policy transformation initiated in October 2015, when the Foreign and Commonwealth Office committed £10 million to establishing a strategic communications capability against Islamic State. The London meeting associated with that commitment brought together representatives from 32 coalition countries, demonstrating that coordinated messaging was understood as a multinational security instrument rather than an ancillary publicity function. By the 2022–2023 financial year, the Counter-Daesh Communications Cell was reporting activities concerned not only with extremist propaganda but also with community resilience, institutional trust and the reintegration of populations affected by the conflict.

The expansion matters because countering terrorist recruitment and influencing public attitudes toward institutions involve different political responsibilities. The first addresses the operational communications of an identifiable violent organisation; the second enters the relationship between citizens, domestic authorities and the competing interpretations of national legitimacy. The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund’s 2022–2023 annual report places both objectives within the wider British security effort, but the legitimacy of individual activities depends on the authority under which they were commissioned and the independence retained by their implementing organisations.

The financial record reveals scale, but conceals the decisive relationships

The historical Yalla-related material identifies £4.3 million in reported British programme expenditure during 2019/20, followed by a £4 million budget for 2020/21. Those figures represent a combined nominal programme value of £8.3 million, but they cannot be treated as verified payments to Yalla or as evidence that the full amount was spent. The distinction between reported expenditure, authorised budgets, actual transfers and editorial financing is indispensable because each measures a different form of governmental commitment.

Yalla’s historical operational profile helps explain why such financing would be strategically significant. Contractor material described more than five million followers, approximately 92% of them located in Iraq, with 35% identified as women and a production network of around 100 freelance journalists, influencers and comedians. Arabic- and Kurdish-language content, distributed across social-media platforms and other digital channels, provided a potentially substantial audience infrastructure through which campaigns could reach populations beyond conventional diplomatic communication.

Yet audience scale does not establish political impact, and programme financing does not establish ownership or editorial command. Without authenticated contracts, payment records and financial accounts, the proportion of Yalla’s revenue derived from British programmes cannot be calculated. Neither can the reported contractor budgets establish how much financing reached the newsroom, local producers, intermediaries or commercial service providers.

The wider British accounts illustrate the danger of conflating financial categories. The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund reported £830.4 million in total expenditure during 2022–2023, against an allocation of £840.5 million. Those figures cover cross-government security programmes across numerous countries and cannot be presented as spending on Iraq, strategic communications or Yalla. Similarly, the National Audit Office reported £110 million in additional Ministry of Defence operational costs for Iraq and the wider Middle East during 2023–2024, a category that cannot be converted into a media-influence budget.

The gap between aggregate public expenditure and individual contractor payments is therefore more than an accounting inconvenience. It is the point at which the public’s ability to identify the beneficiaries and actual operational purposes of state-financed communications becomes dependent on records that annual programme summaries do not necessarily disclose.

Private contractors transform public money into editorial leverage

The commercial significance of strategic communications contracting lies in the separation of governmental objectives from the identity of the organisation that eventually addresses the audience. Historical material associated with M&C Saatchi World Services describes proposed arrangements involving local production networks, intermediaries, journalists, social-media personalities and measures intended to obscure the sponsoring relationship.

Such arrangements can provide legitimate operational advantages, including linguistic expertise, local knowledge and protection for personnel working in insecure environments. They can also create conditions in which externally commissioned messages acquire the credibility of apparently independent domestic journalism. Determining which function prevailed requires evidence of the contractual arrangements and their actual implementation, rather than accepting either a contractor’s proposed methods or a publisher’s representation of independence as conclusive.

The economic transmission mechanism is straightforward. A government finances a contractor, the contractor commissions or distributes content through local organisations, and the audience encounters the publication under the identity of a familiar Iraqi media platform. If the external commissioner controls the subject, framing or approval of that content while remaining undisclosed, the communication carries an institutional authority different from the one the audience reasonably perceives.

The most important form of leverage may not involve an explicit instruction to publish a false statement. It can arise through recurring commissions, editorial priorities, contract renewal conditions or approval rights that influence what receives coverage and how competing interpretations are presented. Where continued operations depend heavily on one financier, economic dependence may constrain editorial autonomy without a formal transfer of ownership.

British official reporting offers a useful contrast. The Counter-Daesh Communications Cell reported reaching more than 40 million people across Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and West Africa during 2022–2023, while its later A Journey Home campaign was described as reaching 40 million viewers and supporting the reintegration of families returning from al-Hol. The government’s 2023–2024 account identified collaboration with Iraqi authorities and international partners on that initiative, demonstrating a formally described cooperation model distinct from allegations of undisclosed media sponsorship.

Neither audience figure proves successful persuasion, and the two measurements cannot simply be added together. The difference between distribution and behavioural change matters because large reported audiences can support public expenditure narratives without demonstrating that a programme independently produced the social outcomes claimed for it.

Concealment creates an accountability problem before it establishes a legal violation

The legal distinction between opaque sponsorship and prohibited intervention is consequential. Under the International Law Commission’s Articles on State Responsibility, governmental responsibility for private conduct depends on the applicable attribution rules, including whether particular actions were performed under state instructions, direction or control. A commercial contract financed by the United Kingdom does not automatically make every publication by a local subcontractor attributable to the British state.

The International Court of Justice’s 1986 Nicaragua judgment provides the further distinction relevant to sovereignty: prohibited intervention under customary international law involves coercive interference in matters reserved to a state’s political independence. Foreign persuasion, even when unattributed, cannot automatically be classified as a violation of that prohibition without establishing the necessary legal elements.

That threshold does not remove the governance problem. Iraq’s Constitution protects freedom of expression and the press under Article 38, while the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights establishes protections concerning expression and privacy. A response designed to expose concealed foreign political sponsorship must therefore avoid turning governmental oversight into a mechanism for restricting independent journalism.

The appropriate institutional test concerns the identity of the sponsor, the scope of editorial direction, the financial relationship and any authorisation provided by Iraqi institutions. If a British-financed programme was openly coordinated with Baghdad, its sovereignty implications differ from those of an operation conducted without the knowledge of competent Iraqi authorities. If a recipient maintained enforceable editorial independence, its position differs from that of a publisher required to follow externally approved political narratives.

The historical Yalla material leaves these distinctions unresolved. Its significance is sufficient to justify a contract-level examination of funding and editorial authority, but it does not independently establish that a current covert operation exists or that every historical activity crossed an international legal threshold.

Europe’s separate mandates expose the limits of a common Western strategy

Britain’s continuing communications leadership should not be confused with the distinct responsibilities of France, Germany, Italy, NATO or the European Union. Their activities in Iraq follow different institutional arrangements, and the credibility of those arrangements depends upon preserving the distinction between authorised security assistance and externally directed political communication.

France’s Operation Chammal has maintained operational cooperation with Iraqi forces, including the August 2026 French defence report describing a joint exercise involving two Rafale B aircraft and two Iraqi T-50 aircraft. Germany’s Counter Daesh and Capacity Building Iraq mandate was extended to 31 January 2027, although the Bundeswehr reported its withdrawal from Erbil on 1 October 2026. Italy’s Operation Prima Parthica reported the completion of four specialist courses for 74 Peshmerga personnel in January 2026, with an Italian contingent of approximately 300 personnel at that reporting date.

NATO provides a different example of post-withdrawal continuity. In March 2026, NATO Mission Iraq personnel were relocated to Allied Joint Force Command Naples, while advisory functions continued remotely. The European Union’s civilian EUAM Iraq mission operated under a separate Common Security and Defence Policy framework, with a technical mandate extension to 31 October 2026.

These arrangements demonstrate that the end of the coalition military mission cannot be used as a common termination date for all foreign security engagement. They also show why an allegation concerning a British communications contractor cannot automatically be attributed to other European governments or institutions.

The European Union nevertheless provides a regulatory comparison through Regulation (EU) 2024/900 on political advertising, whose principal provisions became applicable on 10 October 2025. Its requirements concerning sponsorship transparency and restrictions on personal-data-based targeting offer a model for distinguishing political advertising from independent editorial activity. The regulation does not automatically govern all British-financed communications in Iraq, but its design demonstrates that transparency can be required without treating every politically relevant publication as an instrument of foreign interference.

The broader geopolitical complication is that Iraqi public opinion does not divide neatly between Western and Iranian influence. Arab Barometer’s 2024 survey found that 70% of respondents considered Iranian political influence a critical security threat, while 42% favoured stronger economic relations with Iran. American favourability reached 60% in the Kurdistan Region but only 23% in federally governed areas. These differences undermine any communications strategy built on the assumption that concern about one foreign power necessarily produces support for another.

The next two years will determine who bears the cost of opacity

Over the 12–24 months following October 2026, Britain’s principal institutional exposure will concern the credibility of its continuing communications mandate and its ability to demonstrate that historical and current contractors operate within defensible legal, financial and editorial boundaries. The British government’s January 2025 announcement of a bilateral trade package worth up to £12.3 billion adds an economic dimension to this relationship, because uncertainty concerning governmental influence can complicate confidence in partnerships whose declared objectives extend from defence to infrastructure and investment.

For Baghdad, the immediate policy choice concerns how to supervise foreign-sponsored political communications without creating new restrictions on independent Iraqi media. A system that requires disclosure of material governmental sponsorship while protecting editorial discretion could improve accountability; a broad system of political registration or intrusive newsroom supervision could instead weaken the institutions it is intended to protect.

British departments and contractors face the corresponding financial and reputational exposure. An examination of historical contracts could identify legitimate confidential arrangements, inadequate disclosures or editorial responsibilities inconsistent with public representations of independence. Without that examination, unresolved allegations may persist across successive programmes, raising the cost of maintaining public confidence even where the underlying security objectives remain legitimate.

The economic burden of inaction would not be distributed equally. Contractors could face compliance and reputational costs, British institutions could incur additional parliamentary and audit scrutiny, and Iraqi media organisations could suffer lost credibility or financing regardless of whether their own journalism was independently produced. Iraqi citizens would bear the less visible cost if the origins of political communications remained impossible to distinguish, while legitimate international assistance could become more vulnerable to suspicion.

The September 2026 withdrawal changed the instruments through which Britain engages Iraq, but the government’s own announcements confirm that communications remain part of the relationship. The determining test for 2027–2028 will be whether London and Baghdad can identify who finances, commissions and controls those communications without compromising lawful confidentiality or independent journalism. If they cannot, the military transition will have delivered a clearer distribution of territorial security responsibility while leaving the accountability for influence substantially unresolved.

Geopolitical Dynamics and Cultural Influence: Russia’s 2025 Designation of the British Council as an Undesirable Organization

---

Navigational Index

Pillar I — The Architecture of British Information Power

• Chapter 1. From Military Intervention to Strategic Communications: Britain’s Iraqi Doctrine, 2003–2026
• Chapter 2. Institutional Authority, Government Financing and the Counter-Daesh Communications System
• Chapter 3. Commercial Contractors, Editorial Intermediaries and Concealed Sponsorship
• Chapter 4. The Yalla Platform: Audience Infrastructure, Media Credibility and the Economics of Influence

Pillar II — Influence Mechanisms, Sovereignty and Accountability

• Chapter 5. Behavioural Communication, Audience Segmentation and the Management of Public Perception
• Chapter 6. Information Sovereignty, Journalism and the Boundary Between Public Diplomacy and Covert Influence
• Chapter 7. Domestic and International Legal Frameworks: State Responsibility, Disclosure and Institutional Oversight
• Chapter 8. Sectarian Identity, Kurdish Politics, Iranian Influence and the Risks of Narrative Intervention

Pillar III — Strategic Consequences and the Post-Coalition Order

• Chapter 9. Iraq After Coalition Withdrawal: British Strategic Continuity and Regional Competition
• Chapter 10. Implications for the United Kingdom, European Partners and International Information Governance
• Chapter 11. Alternative Strategic Pathways, Exposure Risks and the 2026–2031 Outlook
• Chapter 12. Accountability Mechanisms, Policy Options and Final Strategic Assessment

---

Master Abstract

Information operations as an instrument of post-conflict power

The history of foreign intervention in Iraq cannot be understood exclusively through military deployments, territorial control, security-force training or formal diplomatic agreements. Since the 2003 invasion, Iraq has also been a theatre for competing attempts to influence public legitimacy, political identity, communal relations and perceptions of external powers. Information has therefore been both an operational resource and an instrument of statecraft.

British policy progressively institutionalised the communications dimension of counterterrorism. In September 2015, London established the Counter-Daesh Communications Cell to coordinate international messaging against Islamic State propaganda. Parliamentary records subsequently confirmed substantial public funding, British leadership of coalition communications and the integration of informational objectives into the broader military and political campaign.

This history establishes the official strategic environment in which privately delivered information programmes could operate. It does not, by itself, authenticate any particular leaked contractor submission or prove covert editorial intervention in an individual Iraqi publication.

The institutional distinction is critical. Publicly acknowledged campaigns against terrorist recruitment occupy a different accountability position from state-financed material presented to audiences as independent local journalism. The latter creates an information asymmetry between the sponsor, intermediary and audience. When the financial or editorial relationship remains undisclosed, citizens may attribute institutional independence to communication that has in fact been designed to achieve an external government’s policy objectives.

The commercialisation of political persuasion

The contemporary influence contractor combines the functions of communications consultancy, audience research, creative production, behavioural analysis and distribution management. This allows a foreign state to reach a domestic audience through apparently familiar cultural and media environments rather than through official diplomatic channels.

Youth-oriented platforms are especially consequential because news, entertainment, identity, social interaction and civic participation increasingly share the same digital distribution networks. An initiative presented through travel programmes, professional advice, local storytelling or community-building activities can produce broader political effects without taking the outward form of partisan propaganda.

The central analytical issue is consequently the relationship between sponsorship and editorial discretion. A government grant does not automatically negate journalistic independence; equally, incorporation as a local commercial organisation does not establish independence when a foreign sponsor retains control over campaign objectives, content approval, distribution or performance metrics.

Sovereignty after the military withdrawal

On 30 September 2026, Britain’s Ministry of Defence announced that coalition forces, including British personnel, had departed Iraq under the transition to new security arrangements. In the same announcement, the ministry confirmed continued British leadership in coordinating counter-Daesh communications. The physical military transition therefore leaves an institutional information function explicitly in place.

This continuity is strategically significant. The mechanisms capable of influencing a national information environment do not necessarily depend on permanent military bases, deployed combat formations or visible foreign personnel. Financial relationships, contractor networks, media partnerships and remote communications capacity can continue under different administrative arrangements.

The decisive challenge for Iraqi institutions and their international partners is to reconcile legitimate counterterrorism cooperation with the independence of domestic journalism and the public’s ability to identify who is seeking to influence political and social attitudes. A durable framework requires credible disclosure, contractual accountability, meaningful safeguards for locally employed journalists and procedures capable of distinguishing historical activities from currently authorised programmes.

Training Systems for Ukrainian Forces: A Critical Examination of British and French Involvement

Key Evidence Table

Indicator	Value / Status	Reference period	Issuing authority / evidentiary basis
Counter-Daesh Communications Cell	Established September 2015	2015	UK Government
Initial communications-cell funding	£10 million	Reported 2016	Foreign Affairs Committee, Government response
British leadership of coalition communications	Explicitly confirmed	December 2023	Ministry of Defence parliamentary answer
Reported Yalla programme expenditure	£4.3 million	FY 2019/20	Disclosed contractor material; independent fiscal reconciliation outstanding
Reported Yalla programme budget	£4 million	FY 2020/21	Disclosed contractor material; allocation does not establish expenditure
Historical Yalla audience	More than 5 million reported followers	Contractor reporting period	Disclosed programme material; historical audience figure, not verified current reach
Coalition military mission in Iraq	Concluded; coalition personnel departed	30 September 2026	UK Ministry of Defence
Continued British counter-Daesh communications role	Officially reaffirmed	September 2026	UK Ministry of Defence

The reported Yalla amounts and the officially confirmed £10 million communications-cell commitment concern differently described activities and accounting periods. They cannot responsibly be aggregated into a single British influence-operation expenditure total without procurement and programme-account reconciliation.

Competing Strategic Explanations

The available record supports three potentially overlapping explanations for Britain’s use of Iraqi and regional communications networks. They differ primarily in the degree of political direction and concealment involved.

Explanation	Supporting evidence	Principal limitation	Current assessment
Counterterrorism and stabilisation	Official British policy explicitly sought to reduce Islamic State propaganda and strengthen civilian resilience	Programme objectives alone do not establish the independence of implementing media	Strongly documented as an official policy objective
Broader strategic influence through local media	Contractor material describes behavioural messaging, audience targeting and intermediated media distribution	Specific editorial instructions and comprehensive delivery records are not publicly authenticated	Credible operational concern requiring documentary verification
Sustained political influence beyond the counterterrorism mandate	The established communications capability and continued British strategic engagement provide institutional continuity	No verified record establishes that a particular covert Yalla programme remains operational in October 2026	Possible strategic pathway, not an established current operation

The explanations are not mutually exclusive. A programme can simultaneously pursue legitimate counter-extremism objectives, advance British diplomatic interests and employ disclosure practices that undermine media independence.

Principal Gaps and Watch Indicators

Contractual and financial accountability. The most consequential missing evidence consists of the original contracts, statements of work, amendments, invoices and expenditure records associated with Yalla-related programmes. Their examination would establish the identity of the contracting authorities, actual expenditure, subcontractor obligations and the scope of any government approval rights.

Editorial governance. Content calendars, commissioning instructions, approval records and editorial independence agreements would distinguish ordinary donor-funded journalism from direct external management of content. This distinction is essential to any defensible finding concerning covert editorial control.

Audience transparency. Archived publication disclosures, branded-content notices and platform policy records could establish whether financial sponsorship or the institutional origin of particular campaigns was communicated to Iraqi audiences.

Continuity after September 2026. Subsequent procurement awards, programme summaries, partnership announcements and official parliamentary answers should be examined to determine whether historical media arrangements were discontinued, transformed or continued under new authorities. The existence of a current British communications mission is not, by itself, evidence of the continuation of any specific historical contractor programme.

Iraqi governmental authorisation. Agreements between Baghdad and London, where accessible, would clarify the mandate for foreign-supported information activity and whether relevant programmes were known to, approved by or supervised by competent Iraqi institutions.

Measurable influence. Audience reach, engagement statistics and contractor-reported impressions establish exposure rather than political persuasion. A credible evaluation of behavioural change would require appropriately designed measurements of audience attitudes and independently assessed outcomes.

Strategic Decision Framework

The immediate policy question is how to maintain legitimate international counterterrorism communications without allowing undisclosed sponsorship to compromise public trust.

For the Iraqi government, a proportionate response would involve reviewing foreign-financed political and security communications under applicable domestic law, establishing auditable programme-disclosure expectations and protecting journalists from retaliation arising from investigations into historical funding arrangements.

For British institutions, the relevant course is a bounded review of publicly funded external communications programmes, including contractor governance, disclosure rules and the distinction between confidential operational methods and concealed political sponsorship. Parliamentary scrutiny could be structured to protect genuinely sensitive counterterrorism methods while still establishing whether public money was administered lawfully and responsibly.

For coalition partners and European governments, the broader implication concerns consistency: programmes presented internationally as counter-disinformation initiatives require credible standards governing sponsorship, editorial independence, audience consent and evaluation. A failure to distinguish transparent public diplomacy from deliberately unattributed influence would undermine the legitimacy of future information-integrity partnerships.

The most defensible near-term approach is therefore a contract-led accountability process, not an assumption that all strategic communications are illegitimate or that every disclosed allegation has been conclusively proved.

Final Assessment of the Opening Record

Britain’s publicly documented counter-Daesh communications capacity demonstrates that information operations formed an integral part of its intervention-era strategy. The disclosed Yalla-related material raises a distinct and serious issue: whether state-sponsored persuasion was deliberately embedded within a media environment whose perceived value depended upon local authenticity and editorial independence.

By October 2026, the official military mission in Iraq had ended, but Britain had expressly retained an international counterterrorism communications role. This makes financial transparency, host-state oversight and editorial governance more consequential rather than less.

No decision-useful visualisation is supportable from the verified record that would reliably map Yalla’s complete funding, editorial control and operational relationships. Such a representation would require authenticated contractual and governance records, rather than inferred organisational links.

The central strategic judgment is that the long-term legitimacy of Britain’s information engagement in Iraq will depend not only on the objectives pursued, but on whether the Iraqi public and its institutions can identify the sources of influence operating within their information environment.

PILLAR I — THE ARCHITECTURE OF BRITISH INFORMATION POWER

Chapter 1. From Military Intervention to Strategic Communications: Britain’s Iraqi Doctrine, 2003–2026

The strategic transformation from territorial intervention to the management of political legitimacy

Principal judgment. Britain’s involvement in Iraq developed from a military intervention intended to transform the country’s political and security order into a prolonged engagement with institutional capacity, counterterrorism, governance and public communication. The institutionalisation of strategic communications after 2014 represented an important development in that engagement: the ability to influence how security, legitimacy and social recovery were understood became an organised policy objective alongside military operations.

The history of this transformation matters because information operations do not emerge in an institutional vacuum. They depend upon accumulated knowledge of local political structures, communication channels, social identities, public grievances and the legitimacy of those who deliver messages. The infrastructure through which a foreign government communicates with a population may therefore be strategically significant even after the circumstances that originally justified its establishment have changed.

The 2003 invasion exposed the United Kingdom to a series of political and institutional responsibilities that extended considerably beyond the conduct of combat operations. The central weakness was the relationship between military objectives and the political arrangements required to sustain them. Military success against organised armed forces did not automatically produce functioning institutions, popular legitimacy or a sustainable settlement among competing communities.

The official Iraq Inquiry, published on 6 July 2016, examined British decision-making and involvement between 2001 and 2009. Its findings establish a critical historical foundation: the planning and preparation for Iraq’s post-conflict political and security environment were inadequate, and the difficulties of achieving the desired political outcomes were substantially greater than the assumptions underpinning the intervention.

This historical record is not evidence that later British media programmes were necessarily covert or improper. It does, however, explain why political legitimacy, public trust and the relationship between Iraqi citizens and institutions became strategically central questions for British policy.

Source: The Report of the Iraq Inquiry — Iraq Inquiry and Cabinet Office — July 2016.

The Iraq intervention and the limits of military power

The principal institutional lesson of the early intervention was that security could not be considered independently of the political order within which security institutions operated.

The collapse of existing administrative authority, the development of insurgency, sectarian polarisation and the contested legitimacy of foreign military forces created conditions in which political narratives could affect operational outcomes. Perceptions of occupation, exclusion, communal threat and state credibility influenced whether local populations cooperated with new institutions or viewed them as extensions of externally imposed power.

For Britain, this created a strategic problem with several dimensions.

First, a foreign military force seeking to stabilise territory must communicate with populations whose interests and experiences are not necessarily aligned with those of the intervening power. Official announcements can explain objectives, but they cannot by themselves establish credibility.

Second, political institutions emerging from armed conflict often compete with alternative sources of authority: community leaders, religious networks, local media, informal organisations and armed actors. A communication strategy that overlooks these relationships may reach audiences without persuading them.

Third, communication itself becomes politically sensitive. A message that appears neutral when issued by an Iraqi civic organisation may be interpreted differently if audiences discover that the underlying programme was commissioned or directed by a foreign government.

The distinction is not merely psychological. It concerns the political conditions under which authority is recognised. The identity of the speaker, the origin of the funding and the existence of external editorial influence can change the meaning of otherwise identical information.

Britain’s subsequent engagement with Iraq developed within this tension between strategic effectiveness and political legitimacy.

From the end of the occupation era to the emergence of Islamic State

The withdrawal of most British combat forces in 2009 did not eliminate British strategic interests in Iraq. Diplomatic relations, security cooperation, regional stability and the threat of transnational terrorism continued to connect developments in Iraq to British policy.

The territorial expansion of Islamic State in 2014 fundamentally changed the operational environment. The organisation combined armed violence and territorial administration with an extensive propaganda strategy intended to recruit supporters, intimidate opponents, demonstrate governing capacity and portray its military achievements as evidence of ideological legitimacy.

Its communications activities were significant because they served several functions simultaneously: recruitment, coercion, psychological intimidation, mobilisation and the projection of authority beyond territory under its control.

The coalition response therefore addressed a problem that could not be solved exclusively through kinetic operations. Destroying territorial infrastructure did not necessarily eliminate the movement’s recruitment narratives, ideological claims or ability to exploit local grievances.

This distinction encouraged the development of coordinated counter-messaging mechanisms. The strategic objective extended beyond refuting individual propaganda products. It included weakening the perceived legitimacy of Islamic State, reducing receptivity to recruitment and supporting social environments less vulnerable to extremist mobilisation.

The United Kingdom became an important participant in this process through Operation SHADER, its national contribution to the US-led Operation Inherent Resolve.

The British Ministry of Defence’s September 2024 assessment reported that UK forces had supported training for more than 111,000 Iraqi security personnel, including more than 21,000 Kurdish Peshmerga, while the Royal Air Force had undertaken more than 10,000 sorties by that reporting date.

Those figures document the substantial military and institutional scale of British involvement. They are not measures of communication effectiveness and should not be used to infer the reach of media programmes.

Source: UK Response to the Conclusion of the Global Coalition’s Military Mission in Iraq — Ministry of Defence — September 2024.

The 2015 institutional turning point

The decisive organisational development occurred in 2015, when Britain publicly committed resources to an international strategic communications capability directed against Islamic State.

On 28 October 2015, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced that representatives from 32 coalition countries had participated in a strategic communications meeting in London.

The meeting was hosted by Tobias Ellwood, then Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, and co-chaired with US Under Secretary of State Rick Stengel and the United Arab Emirates’ Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash.

The announcement confirmed an initial British commitment of £10 million to establish an anti-Islamic State Strategic Communications Cell.

The institutional implications were substantial.

Britain was not simply producing national government statements concerning military developments. It was investing in a capacity intended to coordinate communication among international partners, challenge extremist narratives and reduce online recruitment.

The involvement of the United States and United Arab Emirates also demonstrates that this was a multinational communications initiative operating across diplomatic and regional boundaries.

The £10 million commitment established the scale of the initial public policy commitment. It did not establish the complete expenditure over subsequent years, nor does it identify the costs of any individual local media project.

Source: UK Holds Meeting of Representatives from the Global Coalition Against ISIL — Foreign and Commonwealth Office — October 2015.

Institutional chronology and changes in strategic purpose

Period	Strategic environment	Principal British instrument	Communication significance
2003–2009	Invasion, occupation and institutional reconstruction	Military presence, political administration and security assistance	Legitimacy and public confidence emerged as central challenges
2009–2013	Reduced British military footprint	Diplomacy and continuing security relationships	Influence increasingly depended on non-combat institutional relationships
2014–2015	Islamic State’s territorial expansion	Operation SHADER and coalition counterterrorism	Extremist propaganda became a coordinated operational concern
October 2015	Creation of dedicated communications capacity	Initial £10m UK strategic communications commitment	Information activity acquired a formal multinational structure
2016–2019	Military operations and post-territorial stabilisation	Communications coordination and regional partnerships	Greater emphasis on credibility, resilience and local communications
2020–2023	Residual extremist threat and community recovery	Counter-Daesh Communications Cell and CSSF programmes	Communications broadened to reintegration, institutional trust and social resilience
2024–2026	Transition away from coalition military mission	Bilateral defence cooperation and continuing counter-propaganda coordination	Information engagement remained relevant after the military transition

The key analytical development is the expansion of information policy from a narrow response to extremist propaganda toward a broader agenda of resilience, reconciliation and the relationship between citizens and legitimate institutions.

This expansion is documented in subsequent official British annual reports. It creates a wider field of potential intervention because social trust and cohesion are not exclusively counterterrorism variables; they are also central to domestic political legitimacy.

The transformation of the policy objective: from refutation to resilience

The evolution of British communications policy is especially visible in the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund’s 2022–2023 annual report.

The report described the Counter-Daesh Communications Cell as a mechanism for undermining extremist propaganda while also engaging communities affected by Islamic State occupation.

Its reported activities included strengthening trust between vulnerable communities and legitimate institutions, supporting cohesion and facilitating the reintegration of people returning from camps associated with the conflict.

This represented a wider operational mandate than simply rebutting recruitment material.

The difference has practical consequences. Refuting a false extremist claim requires a communication response to a definable assertion. Strengthening social cohesion requires a more extensive intervention into how communities understand identity, institutions, grievances and their relationships with other groups.

The second activity may have significant humanitarian and stabilisation value. It also requires greater attention to local ownership, political neutrality and transparency because it operates within sensitive areas of communal and governmental legitimacy.

The annual report recorded that Counter-Daesh Communications Cell activities had reached more than 40 million people across Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and West Africa, in addition to television audiences elsewhere in the Middle East.

This geographical coverage is material: it demonstrates that the communications architecture had developed beyond Iraq into a multi-region operating capability.

It does not establish that 40 million individuals changed their views, that the audience consisted exclusively of Iraqis or that the figure represents independently verified unique individuals.

Source: Conflict, Stability and Security Fund Annual Report 2022 to 2023 — UK Government — January 2024.

The end of the coalition mission and the survival of strategic communications

On 30 September 2026, the British Ministry of Defence announced the conclusion of the Global Coalition’s military mission in Iraq and the departure of coalition personnel under the new arrangements.

The announcement identified continuing priorities for bilateral defence cooperation, including counterterrorism, military education, capability development and defence-industrial collaboration.

It also explicitly confirmed that the United Kingdom would continue leading the coordination of coalition communications directed against Islamic State propaganda.

The distinction between the conclusion of the coalition’s military mission and the continuation of information activity is fundamental. The formal military withdrawal does not provide a reliable end date for all British strategic engagement.

Equally, the continued communications mandate does not prove that historical concealed-sponsorship arrangements remain active.

The correct conclusion is narrower but strategically important: a recognised British-led information coordination function survived the transition that ended the coalition military mission in Iraq.

Source: Conclusion of the Global Coalition’s Military Mission in Iraq — Ministry of Defence — September 2026.

Key judgments — Chapter 1

Britain’s information engagement in Iraq developed in response to enduring problems of political legitimacy, security and extremist mobilisation. The 2015 institutionalisation of counter-Daesh communications converted information management into a coordinated, publicly funded international capability. Subsequent programmes expanded the emphasis from propaganda rebuttal to social resilience and institutional trust. The September 2026 military transition did not terminate the officially acknowledged communications function.

What would change the assessment: A formal post-2026 UK-Iraq agreement defining the scope of continuing communications activity, or evidence of a revised mandate restricting activity to overt public diplomacy, would clarify the extent of institutional continuity.

Open official record: Bilateral security arrangements governing post-withdrawal information cooperation; detailed historical programme mandates; current operational and financial authority for continuing coalition communications.

Chapter 2. Institutional Authority, Government Financing and the Counter-Daesh Communications System

A state communications programme embedded in cross-government security financing

Principal judgment. The British Counter-Daesh Communications Cell was not an isolated public-relations initiative. It became part of a cross-government security financing structure in which counterterrorism, stabilisation, international diplomacy and strategic communications were treated as mutually supporting instruments. Official reporting establishes the institutional objectives and considerable regional reach of this machinery, but public expenditure statements do not provide sufficient granularity to reconstruct every commercial contract, local beneficiary or editorial relationship.

The administrative structure is particularly important because the institutional responsibility for a programme cannot be determined from the identity of the organisation that eventually publishes its content.

A foreign media operation may involve several distinct authorities: the department commissioning the programme, the governmental financing mechanism, the contracting authority, an implementing company, local production organisations and a media platform that distributes the resulting material.

Each exercises a different form of control.

The commissioning department determines the governmental objective. The financing mechanism governs expenditure. The contractor translates policy into operational activities. Local intermediaries may shape creative execution and build relationships. The platform determines, or appears to determine, the final presentation of information to the audience.

Where these functions are distributed across several organisations, identifying the actual decision-maker requires documentary evidence beyond the visible publication.

The Counter-Daesh Communications Cell and multinational institutional coordination

The communications structure established in 2015 placed Britain within an international division of responsibility involving the United States, the United Arab Emirates and other coalition partners.

The cell’s establishment reflected the recognition that Islamic State propaganda circulated across national and linguistic boundaries. A purely national response could be less effective against communications targeting dispersed audiences in Iraq, Syria, Europe and other regions.

Coordination therefore offered operational advantages: pooling expertise, sharing assessments of extremist narratives, developing regionally suitable material and strengthening local partners’ communication capabilities.

However, these features also complicate accountability. Multinational coordination does not imply that every national government approved every message. Nor does a British leadership role establish sole British control over all communications issued through coalition-associated channels.

The distinction between coordination and editorial direction must be maintained.

The initial £10 million commitment represented a public British financing decision. By 2022–2023, official reporting placed the communications cell within the broader Counter Terrorism portfolio of the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.

Sources: UK Holds Meeting of Representatives from the Global Coalition Against ISIL — Foreign and Commonwealth Office — October 2015; Conflict, Stability and Security Fund Annual Report 2022 to 2023 — UK Government — January 2024.

The financing architecture: what the public accounts establish

The CSSF was designed to finance activities across conventional departmental boundaries. Its programmes addressed conflict, stability, counterterrorism, transnational threats and other security priorities, combining governmental expertise with implementation by external organisations.

In FY 2022–2023, the government reported £830.4 million of total CSSF expenditure, against a final allocation of £840.5 million.

The figures are important because they demonstrate the institutional scale of the financing mechanism supporting programmes such as the Counter-Daesh Communications Cell. They must not be interpreted as expenditures on Iraq or information operations alone.

The fund operated across more than 90 countries and territories and supported more than 90 programmes during that financial year.

The largest departmental spender was the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, followed by the Ministry of Defence and Home Office.

These financial data allow the structure of the funding mechanism to be assessed, but they do not reveal the value of individual Yalla contracts or establish a payment relationship with M&C Saatchi.

Table 2.1 — Official CSSF financing, FY 2022–2023

Financial indicator	Reported amount	Accounting significance
Final fund allocation	£840.50m	Authorised annual programme allocation
Actual reported expenditure	£830.40m	Cross-government spending, subject to audit
Unspent difference	£10.10m	Calculated from allocation less expenditure
FCDO expenditure	£678.27m	Largest spending department
Ministry of Defence expenditure	£86.73m	Defence-related departmental expenditure
Home Office expenditure	£39.89m	Home Office-managed programmes
Official Development Assistance	£324.40m	Development-assistance eligible expenditure
Non-ODA expenditure	£506.00m	Expenditure outside ODA classification

The £10.10 million difference is calculated from the official reported totals. Departmental values are components of the full CSSF budget, not independent additional financing.

Source: Conflict, Stability and Security Fund Annual Report 2022 to 2023, Annex A: Financial Spend — UK Government — January 2024.

Why expenditure classifications matter

The distinction between ODA and non-ODA spending is important in assessing the institutional purpose of security programmes.

ODA classification concerns whether expenditure meets applicable development-assistance criteria. It does not determine whether a communication activity is overt or covert, politically neutral or otherwise, or whether local media outlets exercise editorial independence.

Similarly, a programme listed within a counterterrorism budget does not establish that every implementation activity directly counters terrorist messaging. Funds may support research, audience analysis, capacity development, public communications, programme management, evaluation and administration, depending on the authorised scope.

An auditor seeking to establish the precise financial architecture of a media programme would therefore require evidence at several levels.

Accounting level	Question answered	Record required
Government fund	Which public financing mechanism supported the activity?	Fund allocation and annual accounts
Department	Which ministry or agency held expenditure responsibility?	Departmental programme records
Programme	What objectives and expenditure limits were authorised?	Business case and programme budget
Contract	Which supplier received a contractual award?	Award notice and signed agreement
Delivery	Which services or products were commissioned?	Statement of work and deliverables
Payment	What amounts were actually transferred?	Invoice and payment records
Subcontract	Which local entities received financing?	Subcontracts and payment schedules
Editorial control	Who approved particular publications?	Commissioning and approval records
Evaluation	What results were measured and accepted?	Programme monitoring reports

This hierarchy distinguishes the financing of a policy objective from payment to a particular publisher.

Without that distinction, public debate can incorrectly convert an allocated programme budget into a verified transfer to a media outlet, or infer editorial control merely from an association with the same funding mechanism.

The reported communications outcomes: reach versus influence

The CSSF’s 2022–2023 annual report recorded that the Counter-Daesh Communications Cell reached more than 40 million people across Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and West Africa. It also reported growth of more than 300% in engagement with a principal Arabic-language coalition platform since 2020, alongside a doubling of video views.

These indicators support a conclusion that the British-supported communication infrastructure achieved substantial distribution and audience interaction.

They do not measure the same phenomenon.

Reach estimates the number of people exposed to content under a particular measurement definition. Engagement measures audience interaction. Video views measure consumption events and may include repeated exposure. Attitudinal change requires evidence concerning beliefs, preferences or opinions. Behavioural change requires evidence of subsequent actions.

The government also reported a reduction in residual support for Islamic State in communities across Iraq and northeast Syria. The published summary does not provide sufficient methodological detail to attribute that reduction exclusively to the communications cell.

Table 2.2 — Official programme performance and evidentiary meaning

Metric	Officially reported result	Scope	What it establishes	What it cannot establish alone
Communications reach	Over 40m	Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and West Africa	Reported distribution scale	Unique Iraqi recipients or persuasion
Arabic platform engagement	Growth above 300% since 2020	Coalition digital communication	Substantial reported growth in interactions	Comparable baseline audience size
Video consumption	Views doubled	Relevant coalition content	Increased reported consumption	Number of distinct viewers
Residual extremist support	Reduction reported	Selected Iraqi and northeast Syrian communities	Government-reported outcome	Exclusive causal effect of messaging
Community resilience	Positive programme effects claimed	Vulnerable communities	Intended stabilisation outcome	Fully independently established impact

Source: Conflict, Stability and Security Fund Annual Report 2022 to 2023, Transnational Threats, paragraphs 25–29 — UK Government — January 2024.

A particularly significant development occurred in 2023, when the Counter-Daesh Communications Cell launched the A Journey Home campaign concerning the return and reintegration of families from the al-Hol camp.

The UK government’s 2023–2024 annual report stated that the campaign was developed in collaboration with Iraqi authorities, UN agencies, community leaders and the camp authorities. It reported an audience of 40 million viewers, reduced hostility to returnees and positive effects on reintegration.

This programme is important for two reasons. First, it demonstrates that the communications cell had developed the capacity to address socially sensitive questions extending beyond direct anti-terrorist propaganda. Second, it provides a documented example of an initiative which the government expressly characterised as collaborative with Iraqi authorities.

That institutional description distinguishes it from allegations of concealed sponsorship in other programmes. The two should not be treated as automatically equivalent.

The reported 40 million viewers of A Journey Home must also not be added to the 40 million reach figure reported for FY 2022–2023 without resolving differences in audience coverage and reporting periods.

Source: Conflict, Stability and Security Fund Annual Report 2023 to 2024 — UK Government — December 2024.

The transition from CSSF to the Integrated Security Fund

The government’s 2022–2023 annual reporting also documented the transformation of the CSSF into the Integrated Security Fund.

The significance of this change lies in the broader policy architecture rather than a presumed continuation of every individual project.

The Integrated Security Fund was conceived to retain the advantages of cross-government coordination while connecting domestic and international security priorities. That model potentially supports activities spanning strategic communications, hostile-state threats, counterterrorism and institutional resilience.

It also means that historical programme research cannot be limited to a single departmental budget title. A communications activity may change administrative sponsorship, accounting category or implementation arrangements without necessarily changing its substantive objective.

Conversely, continuity in the financing architecture cannot be treated as proof that a previous contractor remained engaged.

Accountability and the limits of public programme reporting

The UK government has published programme-level annual review materials, including a Counter-Daesh Communications Cell review summary for FY 2022–2023, released within a set of counterterrorism programme documents in January 2025.

This provides an identifiable public record for further scrutiny of objectives, results and programme management.

However, programme reporting and financial audit perform different functions. An annual review may establish that a programme met designated performance criteria while leaving individual financial relationships undisclosed. An expenditure record can establish that a contractor was paid without establishing how content was edited or whether sponsorship was communicated to audiences.

Consequently, a comprehensive accountability assessment requires both financial and operational evidence.

Source: Conflict, Stability and Security Fund: Counter Terrorism Annual Review Summaries 2022 to 2023 — FCDO and Cabinet Office — January 2025.

Key judgments — Chapter 2

The public record establishes a centrally supported and internationally coordinated British communications capability funded through cross-government security instruments. Its reported reach extended across several regions, while its activities included counter-propaganda, institutional trust and community reintegration.

The published aggregate accounts do not establish the identity or precise payment amounts of every implementing media organisation. A separate audit trail is required before attributing an individual outlet’s financing to a specific government programme.

What would change the assessment: Publication of contract-level financial records, detailed programme performance evaluations and an authoritative reconciliation of departmental expenditure with individual implementing organisations.

Open official record: Programme-specific awards, contractor payment records, subgrant schedules, editorial terms of reference and full monitoring documentation for the communications programmes relevant to Iraq.

Chapter 3. Commercial Contractors, Editorial Intermediaries and Concealed Sponsorship

The privatisation of operational influence and the fragmentation of responsibility

Principal judgment. Commercial intermediation is one of the most consequential features of modern state-sponsored information activity because it separates the political authority that defines an objective from the organisations that appear publicly to communicate it. The result can be a legitimate outsourced communications service, a government-supported but genuinely independent media initiative, or a deliberately unattributed influence operation. These arrangements may look similar to audiences while differing substantially in their funding, editorial governance and disclosure practices.

An advertising or strategic communications contractor can provide a government with capabilities that are difficult to reproduce within an embassy or public administration. These include professional audience research, multilingual production, regional cultural expertise, media distribution, analytics and relationships with local creative organisations.

The commercial model is attractive because it is flexible. Contractors can recruit project-specific personnel, procure media services, commission content and adapt programmes to fast-changing conditions. They can also place operational distance between government institutions and the organisations carrying out activities.

That separation, however, creates an accountability problem when audiences cannot determine who financed the content or whether the apparent publisher retains control over its editorial decisions.

The fundamental distinction is between outsourcing implementation and outsourcing accountability. A state can delegate content production through contractual arrangements, but the delegation does not eliminate the need to account for public expenditure, programme authority and the consequences of official activities.

The contractual position of M&C Saatchi World Services

Material describing the Iraqi media programmes identifies M&C Saatchi World Services as an implementing contractor associated with British strategic communications.

The contractor submissions describe experience in sensitive, unattributed programmes for government clients and set out mechanisms for locally delivered communications through intermediaries, journalists, social-media personalities and production networks.

These descriptions support an assessment of the proposed operating model. They do not, without an authenticated contract and corresponding delivery record, establish that every proposed measure was implemented in Iraq.

The distinction between proposal and execution is essential. A tender submission describes how a supplier intends to perform a service. A signed agreement defines the contractual obligations accepted. An approved delivery plan describes authorised implementation. Actual production, distribution and payment records establish what subsequently occurred.

A comprehensive reconstruction must therefore determine whether the relevant documents were bids, successful proposals, contract modifications, programme reviews or retrospective contractor accounts.

These categories carry substantially different evidentiary weight.

Table 3.1 — Documentary thresholds for attributing operational responsibility

Document	Principal evidentiary value	Limitation
Contractor proposal	Establishes proposed methods and claimed capabilities	Does not prove award or implementation
Government tender specification	Establishes requested programme objectives	Does not identify the winning supplier
Signed contract	Establishes contracting parties and obligations	May not disclose subsequent modifications
Statement of work	Specifies deliverables and responsibilities	Does not independently prove completion
Contract amendment	Documents changes to scope or financing	Must be read with original agreement
Invoice and payment record	Establishes billed and paid amounts	Does not prove content impact
Editorial approval record	Identifies decision-makers for particular content	May concern only selected publications
Media publication archive	Establishes publicly distributed material	Does not necessarily identify its sponsor
Independent evaluation	May assess exposure, effect and compliance	Depends on methodology and evaluator independence

The framework establishes why public allegations concerning political influence require more than proof of a commercial association. The essential questions concern the scope of the relationship, the actual authority exercised and whether relevant information was withheld from audiences.

The operational importance of local intermediaries

A communications campaign addressed to Iraqi audiences faces a credibility problem when its foreign sponsorship is prominent.

An official British message may be informative, but audiences will interpret it in the context of Britain’s previous military involvement, diplomatic relationships and policy interests. An Iraqi journalist, comedian, cultural presenter or community organisation may communicate the same substantive message through a different relationship of perceived trust.

The involvement of local intermediaries can therefore change both distribution and reception.

Local participants contribute linguistic authenticity, familiarity with social conventions, knowledge of regional sensitivities and access to established communities. Their presence can also help programmes avoid communications that appear culturally remote or politically imposed.

These capabilities are not inherently improper. International development agencies routinely work with local organisations because local knowledge improves the relevance of projects.

The ethical and institutional issue arises when the apparent independence of the intermediary becomes an instrument of deliberate concealment.

A project may preserve the identity of a journalist while still identifying its institutional sponsor. It may protect sensitive participants without falsely presenting a foreign-financed campaign as an entirely autonomous local media initiative.

The distinction between protecting individuals and concealing political sponsorship is therefore fundamental.

Concealed attribution as an operational mechanism

The contractor material describes possible methods for separating the governmental or commercial commissioner from local production. These include the use of an intermediary corporate entity, indirect payments, regionally credible production personnel and technical measures intended to obscure the source of communications activity.

Several mechanisms are analytically distinct.

A separate local company may be a normal operational arrangement that provides legal employment, financial administration and local contracting capacity. Its existence alone does not demonstrate deception.

An intermediary payment structure may simplify cross-border transactions or protect contractual relationships. It becomes relevant to concealed influence when its purpose is to prevent the audience, regulator or contracting authorities from identifying the actual sponsor.

Technical anonymity may serve cybersecurity, privacy or personnel-protection purposes. It does not by itself prove an improper influence operation.

The decisive factor is whether these measures were used together to produce a materially misleading account of the editorial or financial origin of communications directed at the public.

Table 3.2 — Structural mechanisms and their accountability implications

Mechanism	Legitimate operational function	Potential influence function	Decisive verification requirement
Local implementing company	Employment, contracts and domestic operations	Separates foreign sponsor from public-facing publisher	Ownership and contractual control
Indirect payments	Financial administration and supplier management	Obscures ultimate funding source	Payment-chain reconciliation
Local content creators	Cultural relevance and linguistic accuracy	Transfers credibility from local individuals to externally commissioned messages	Creator agreements and sponsorship disclosures
Multilingual production	Audience accessibility	Targets different communities with tailored narratives	Campaign briefs and publication archive
Editorial guidance	Quality, safety and factual standards	Directs political or behavioural framing	Approval and veto provisions
Audience analytics	Measures distribution effectiveness	Supports highly specific persuasion objectives	Data governance and evaluation records
Cross-platform syndication	Expands legitimate programme access	Disseminates sponsored material beyond its original context	Syndication agreements and attribution rules
Confidential technical systems	Protects staff and operational security	May conceal production origin	Authorised purpose and compliance review

This table identifies possible functions rather than asserting that every mechanism was used in every programme.

The distinction between commissioning and editorial control

The most important contractual variable is not the identity of the financier but the allocation of editorial power.

A media organisation can accept external financing while maintaining independence if the funding agreement protects editorial judgment, prohibits interference with coverage and permits the publication of content inconsistent with a donor’s political preferences.

Conversely, a contractor may exercise substantial control over a nominally independent publication without owning it, particularly where continued financing depends on compliance with programme objectives.

Editorial control may take several forms.

Direct approval rights permit a commissioner to authorise or reject publication. Agenda-setting authority determines which subjects should receive attention. Framing requirements specify how approved subjects must be presented. Performance-linked financing rewards content that produces desired audience responses. Contractual veto rights allow the sponsor to prevent publication inconsistent with programme goals.

These mechanisms should not be treated as interchangeable. Editorial independence can be compromised through direct intervention, but it can also be weakened through economic dependency and commissioning incentives.

The existence of donor financing therefore neither automatically proves nor disproves editorial independence.

Mapping the governance relationships

The financial, contractual and editorial relationships should be examined separately.

Relationship	Authority involved	What must be established
British government → principal contractor	Public procurement and programme management	Contract, objectives and financing
Principal contractor → local producer	Subcontracting	Operational responsibilities and payment
Local producer → media outlet	Content commissioning or licensing	Publication and editorial agreements
Contractor → individual creator	Employment or freelance engagement	Commissioned work and disclosure obligations
Media outlet → audience	Journalism and public communication	Representation of independence and sponsorship
Government → evaluation provider	Monitoring and audit	Selection of performance criteria and independence of assessment

A single document rarely proves every link. The strength of any allegation concerning a concealed influence network depends on the ability to reconstruct the chain across multiple records.

The economics of contractor dependence

A platform financed through project contracts may face a structural tension between commercial survival and editorial autonomy.

If a single sponsor finances most operational expenditure, refusing editorial or strategic requests may put salaries, production capacity and distribution operations at risk. Even without explicit censorship, this dependence can shape institutional decision-making.

The mechanism resembles concentration risk in other industries. When revenue is diversified among advertisers, subscribers, donors and commercial customers, the withdrawal of any single source may be manageable. When one contractual relationship dominates revenue, the sponsoring institution acquires leverage over the organisation’s future.

However, the level of leverage cannot be quantified without knowing the platform’s total revenue, payment terms, unrestricted reserves, ownership and alternative financing sources.

An allegation that a platform received several million pounds in British support therefore establishes potential economic significance, but not the percentage of its financing controlled by Britain.

Any calculation of funding dependence requires a denominator: total financing across the same accounting period.

Procurement law and the boundaries of retrospective assessment

Public contracting is governed by the legal regime applicable when the relevant transaction was conducted.

For any future review, it is important not to apply the Procurement Act 2023 retrospectively to contractual awards reportedly made in 2019 or 2020. Earlier arrangements must be evaluated against the rules and exceptions in force at the time, including applicable security and confidentiality provisions.

The present procurement regime incorporates transparency requirements, but the degree to which any particular national-security-related arrangement is publicly reportable depends on the statutory framework, contract category, exemptions and facts.

Procurement compliance and public-facing media transparency are also separate questions.

A contract may be lawfully awarded while the resulting publication raises concerns about disclosure to readers. Conversely, a transparent publication may still be produced under a contract that warrants audit examination.

Source: Procurement Act 2023 — Parliament of the United Kingdom.

How concealed sponsorship affects the credibility of journalism

The central informational harm associated with concealed sponsorship is the distortion of the audience’s ability to assess provenance.

A news report can be factually accurate while withholding a material financial relationship. In such circumstances, the problem is not necessarily false information. It is that readers are denied information relevant to evaluating editorial incentives and independence.

This is particularly significant where the publisher makes affirmative claims about being independent.

There are at least three distinct dimensions of independence: legal ownership, financial autonomy and editorial discretion. A platform may satisfy one while failing another.

An organisation can be legally incorporated in Iraq but predominantly funded from overseas. It can receive foreign funding yet preserve substantial editorial autonomy. It can also be locally owned while allowing a foreign contractor to determine the content of specific commissioned campaigns.

A defensible institutional assessment must analyse each dimension separately.

Key judgments — Chapter 3

Commercial contractors provide states with access to local communication expertise, flexible production networks and established media distribution channels. These advantages also produce opportunities for opacity when financial sponsorship and editorial authority are separated from the visible publisher.

The contractor material establishes serious questions about proposed attribution arrangements, but the extent of actual implementation requires authenticated procurement, payment and editorial records.

The critical issue is not the existence of foreign financing alone. It is whether audiences were materially misled about the independence of communications designed to serve external governmental objectives.

What would change the assessment: Authenticated agreements demonstrating full editorial independence, independently verified disclosures of sponsorship or records establishing direct foreign approval of published material would materially affect the attribution of responsibility.

Open official record: Relevant government procurement records, M&C Saatchi programme agreements, implementing-entity ownership records, contractual editorial safeguards and verifiable payment schedules.

Chapter 4. The Yalla Platform: Audience Infrastructure, Media Credibility and the Economics of Influence

The strategic value of a locally credible digital platform

Principal judgment. The significance of Yalla lies in the combination of reported audience scale, local editorial identity, multilingual production and cross-platform distribution. These characteristics made it a potentially valuable communications infrastructure for programmes seeking to influence Iraqi social attitudes. The unresolved question is the degree to which externally commissioned objectives affected its editorial governance and whether the institutional sponsorship of relevant material was adequately disclosed.

Yalla emerged in 2015 as a youth-oriented Iraqi media initiative. Its positioning as a platform for news, cultural content and social engagement was commercially and politically important because it addressed audiences through subjects extending beyond conventional political communication.

A media organisation that publishes exclusively official political messages competes for attention on explicitly political terms. A platform combining entertainment, lifestyle, social commentary and journalism establishes a broader relationship with its audience.

That relationship can become particularly valuable when political or social messages are introduced through familiar personalities, ordinary experiences and culturally recognisable storytelling.

The mechanism does not require the publication of falsehoods. An editorial programme can influence attention and attitudes through its choice of subjects, emotional framing, prominence, repetition and selection of speakers.

This makes it important to distinguish a media platform’s general operations from individual sponsored campaigns appearing within it.

The reported scale of Yalla’s digital operations

Historical material describing Yalla reports an audience exceeding 5 million followers, with approximately 92% located in Iraq and 35% identified as women.

It also describes a production network of approximately 100 freelance reporters, influencers and comedians and content distributed through Arabic- and Kurdish-language channels, with additional English-language presence on Facebook.

These numbers are material to understanding the scale of the reported media infrastructure, but they require careful interpretation.

The figure of more than five million followers is a historical contractor-reported audience metric, not a verified October 2026 active-user count. The 92% and 35% shares may reflect the platform’s historical analytics or a particular reporting period. They do not establish precise population-level reach.

Similarly, a reported network of 100 contributors does not mean that 100 people were continuously employed, that all worked on British-financed activities or that their individual output was directly supervised by a British institution.

Table 4.1 — Historical reported Yalla operating indicators

Indicator	Reported value	Analytical significance	Evidence limitation
Followers	Over 5 million	Large potential distribution base	Historical, contractor-reported figure
Followers located in Iraq	92%	Strong reported concentration in the principal national audience	Platform analytics not independently reproduced
Female follower share	35%	Reported cross-gender audience participation	Definition and measurement period unavailable
Freelance contributors	Approximately 100	Distributed local production capability	Headcount and programme allocation not independently verified
Principal content languages	Arabic and Kurdish	Access to different Iraqi linguistic audiences	Precise audience distribution unavailable
Distribution channels	Website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube	Multiple forms of audience access	Accounts and reach require period-specific verification
Reported FY 2019/20 British expenditure	£4.3m	Potentially substantial operational financing	Contract and expenditure audit outstanding
Reported FY 2020/21 British budget	£4.0m	Indication of planned financing continuity	Budget does not prove money was spent

The table describes claims contained in the disclosed programme material. The public official records examined for this report do not independently authenticate the specific Yalla amounts or provide a complete reconciliation with government accounts.

Audience size, geographical reach and the limits of follower counts

A platform’s followers are not equivalent to its active audience, unique annual reach or capacity to influence behaviour.

Social-media follower counts may include inactive accounts, overlapping individuals across different channels and users who seldom encounter a publisher’s content. They can also include followers outside the principal country of operation.

When a platform reports more than five million followers across multiple services, it is therefore inappropriate to assume that five million distinct Iraqi citizens regularly consume its publications.

The same issue arises when interpreting demographic percentages. If the 92% Iraqi share applies to aggregated channel-follow relationships, it cannot automatically be converted into a verified count of unique Iraqi people.

An effective media assessment would distinguish at least five variables.

Table 4.2 — Audience measurement and analytical interpretation

Variable	Definition	Appropriate use	Principal measurement risk
Followers	Accounts subscribing to a platform or channel	Measures declared audience base	Duplicate and inactive accounts
Unique reach	Distinct accounts exposed during a defined period	Measures distribution breadth	Incomplete cross-platform deduplication
Impressions	Number of displayed content instances	Measures exposure frequency	Repeated impressions from the same user
Engagement	Recorded interactions with content	Measures observable audience response	Different meanings across platforms
Attitudinal change	Difference in measured beliefs or opinions	Evaluates persuasion	Confounding factors and selection bias
Behavioural change	Observable change in relevant actions	Evaluates programme outcomes	Attribution and measurement difficulty

The distinction becomes decisive when assessing the effectiveness of government-financed communication.

A programme may substantially increase impressions or engagement without changing underlying political attitudes. Conversely, modest distribution may be influential within particular communities or institutional networks.

The appropriate performance measure must therefore correspond to the authorised objective.

A campaign seeking to inform citizens about available rehabilitation services can reasonably measure awareness and service uptake. A programme seeking to change perceptions of government legitimacy requires more sophisticated and ethically sensitive measurement.

The role of multilingual production

Arabic and Kurdish content production is strategically relevant because Iraq’s linguistic and political environment cannot be represented adequately through a single national communications market.

Arabic-language production can reach broad national audiences, while Kurdish-language production can provide direct access to communities for whom Kurdish is the principal language of public communication.

The value extends beyond translation. Different communities may rely upon distinct cultural references, media personalities, regional experiences and institutions.

A centrally designed communication programme that merely translates identical material may fail to account for these differences.

Localised production enables more culturally appropriate messages but also increases the need for transparent governance when a foreign sponsor is involved. Tailoring narratives to linguistic or social communities can become politically consequential if content addresses contested institutional relationships, communal identities or questions of national authority.

The analytical distinction is between accessibility and deliberate differentiation of political messages.

Publishing the same factual information in multiple languages is not equivalent to delivering contradictory or selectively framed narratives to different communities. Establishing the latter would require a comparative archive of the relevant publications and their underlying campaign instructions.

Entertainment as a vehicle for institutional narratives

A central feature of Yalla’s reported media model is the use of cultural, entertainment and personal-development material alongside journalism.

These formats can give an organisation access to audiences who do not actively seek political information. They also allow discussions of collective identity and institutional legitimacy to emerge through indirect narratives.

Travel programming, for example, may introduce audiences to different regions, traditions and historical experiences. A production emphasising shared heritage may promote mutual understanding and reduce social distance between communities.

Career-oriented content may encourage personal agency, education or employment. Humorous and lifestyle-oriented programmes may make a publisher appear familiar and socially relevant.

None of these genres establishes improper influence by itself.

The critical issue is the relationship between production objectives and audience expectations.

Where a programme is financed to achieve specific changes in political attitudes, content that appears purely cultural may also serve a strategic communications purpose. Such dual-purpose communication requires scrutiny of its commissioning, editorial control and disclosure.

An investigator cannot establish the purpose of an individual video by subject matter alone. A documentary concerning local heritage may be independent journalism, commercially sponsored cultural content or part of a publicly funded social cohesion campaign.

The underlying commissioning records determine which interpretation is supported.

The economics of sustained media operations

The reported financial figures concerning Yalla are substantial enough to warrant closer accounting analysis.

The disclosed material identifies £4.3 million for FY 2019/20 and a further £4 million budget for FY 2020/21.

The two figures should be classified separately: the first is described as expenditure, while the second is described as a budgeted amount.

Their combined nominal value is £8.3 million, but this is not proof that £8.3 million was actually paid, received or spent by Yalla across the two years.

Nor is it evidence that the full amount constituted editorial financing. The description encompasses a broader operating infrastructure, potentially including personnel, production, platform management, distribution and supporting services.

Without itemised contract records, it is impossible to determine what proportion of the reported budget reached journalists, technical contractors, media platforms or corporate intermediaries.

Table 4.3 — Yalla financing claims: accounting reconciliation

Financial component	FY 2019/20	FY 2020/21	Interpretation
Reported programme amount	£4.30m	£4.00m	Historical contractor-material figures
Reported accounting classification	Described as expenditure	Described as budget	Different levels of financial certainty
Independently verified actual payments	Not established	Not established	Requires invoice and banking records
Confirmed direct payments to Yalla legal entity	Not established	Not established	Requires beneficiary identification
Production and subcontractor breakdown	Not established	Not established	Requires supplier-level expenditure
Share of total Yalla annual revenue	Not established	Not established	Requires audited platform accounts
Editorial content budget	Not established	Not established	Requires activity-level expenditure records

The distinction between a contract’s headline amount and the resources available for actual journalism is particularly important. A large communications contract may include overheads, commercial margins, production costs, media buying, research and evaluation.

Accordingly, the magnitude of a programme budget cannot establish the number of journalists employed, the amount paid per publication or the extent of governmental control over a newsroom.

Financial dependence and independence: the missing denominator

The assertion that a platform is financially independent can have different meanings.

It may mean that the organisation operates without direct ownership by a political party or government. It may mean that no single institution controls its financing. Alternatively, it may refer to a commercial operating model supported by advertising, audience revenue and other private income.

These claims are not interchangeable.

A media company may be privately incorporated and still depend financially on one public-sector contract. Conversely, a media organisation may receive substantial institutional grants while preserving editorial independence through enforceable governance protections.

The relevant financial dependence ratio is:

\[ \text{Sponsor dependence}=\frac{\text{Sponsor-derived revenue}}{\text{Total organisational revenue}}\times100 \]

For Yalla, the necessary revenue denominator and the identity of all payment beneficiaries have not been established from authenticated financial statements.

Calculating a percentage of dependence from the reported British expenditure alone would therefore create false precision.

The correct investigation requires audited accounts, bank-payment reconciliation, identification of related-party transactions and examination of contractual restrictions on editorial decisions.

The difference between editorial independence and perceived independence

A media organisation’s reputation is an intangible institutional asset.

Credibility affects whether audiences return, share content, accept information and regard the publisher as a trustworthy interpreter of events.

For a youth-oriented media platform, the combination of informal presentation, familiar cultural references and locally recognised contributors can create a particularly strong perception of proximity to the audience.

This reputation may be commercially valuable even if the content is not explicitly political.

The vulnerability arises when the audience’s understanding of the institution differs materially from the underlying financing or editorial relationship.

If readers understand a platform as independently selecting its content, but particular publications are commissioned to meet an undisclosed foreign government’s objectives, the platform’s reputation may confer credibility on a message that would otherwise be interpreted differently.

The concern is not confined to the factual accuracy of the publication. It involves the transparency of the relationship between the sponsor, publisher and audience.

A rigorous assessment of Yalla must therefore examine specific publications rather than drawing conclusions about all output from the existence of a reported financial arrangement.

Measuring the potential influence pathway

The strategic communications value of a platform like Yalla can be understood through the successive stages of its relationship with audiences.

Stage	Operational requirement	Potential source of influence	Evidence necessary for assessment
Audience access	Established channels and substantial reach	Ability to deliver content repeatedly	Historical platform analytics
Audience attention	Attractive editorial formats	Selection of which issues receive exposure	Publication-level engagement data
Perceived credibility	Familiar presenters and local identity	Increased acceptance of the publisher as trustworthy	Independently measured audience perceptions
Narrative framing	Selection and presentation of subjects	Interpretation of social and institutional issues	Comparative content archive
Attitudinal response	Audience consideration of the message	Possible changes in beliefs or evaluations	Properly designed audience studies
Behavioural response	Observable decisions or actions	Potential practical programme effects	Defined outcome measures and controls
Sustained influence	Continued institutional relationship	Repeated reinforcement of particular narratives	Longitudinal evidence

The stages describe a possible causal pathway, not a confirmed series of results attributable to Yalla.

This distinction is essential. Large audiences and extensive production networks increase the opportunity for exposure. They do not establish that citizens were successfully persuaded, politically mobilised or manipulated.

Similarly, the existence of a behavioural communications objective does not prove that the desired behaviour occurred.

The question of current operational continuity

The historical platform figures cannot establish Yalla’s present operational status, ownership, audience size or financing in October 2026.

Even where a media brand continues to publish, its historical contractual relationships may have expired, changed or been replaced. Contractors may have withdrawn. Editorial governance may have changed. New commercial arrangements may have been introduced.

The September 2026 conclusion of the coalition military mission does not resolve these questions.

The continued existence of a British-led counter-Daesh communications function creates an institutional possibility for ongoing activity, but does not establish that Yalla participates in it.

A defensible present-day investigation would need to identify the platform’s current legal operator, management, website and social-media accounts, principal funding sources and relationships with external communications organisations.

Without these records, historical findings cannot responsibly be converted into claims of current direction by British authorities.

An integrated assessment of the Yalla evidence

The Yalla case brings together four institutional issues that are often examined separately.

The first is financial sponsorship: the identity of the organisations paying for content and operations.

The second is contractual authority: the ability of a sponsor or contractor to define campaign objectives, approve material or influence editorial priorities.

The third is media representation: the information provided to audiences about the independence of the publisher and the provenance of specific content.

The fourth is measurable impact: the extent to which published material changed knowledge, attitudes or behaviour.

These four elements form the evidentiary basis for assessing whether a foreign-financed media initiative functioned as independent journalism, sponsored strategic communications or an unattributed influence operation.

A conclusion about the first element cannot substitute for evidence concerning the remaining three.

Key judgments — Chapter 4

Yalla’s reported historical audience, multilingual capabilities and distributed production network provide a credible explanation for why a strategic communications contractor would regard it as a valuable media vehicle.

The reported £4.3 million expenditure and £4 million subsequent budget are potentially significant, but neither figure independently establishes actual transfers to the platform, total organisational dependence or the extent of editorial direction.

The decisive issue is the relationship between the platform’s public representation of independence and any undisclosed contractual power exercised over specific publications.

What would change the assessment: Audited financial statements, authenticated agreements defining editorial authority, independently verifiable publication archives, sponsorship disclosures and documented programme evaluations would allow a more definitive institutional conclusion.

Open official record: Historical and current ownership records; beneficiary-level financial evidence; commissioning and approval records; archived published content; independent audience measurements; present-day funding and contractual arrangements.

Pillar I — Integrated Institutional Assessment

The four chapters establish a coherent institutional architecture, but the layers of evidence must remain distinct.

Britain’s development of strategic communications as a component of counterterrorism and stabilisation policy is supported by public government records. The creation of a dedicated communications capability in 2015, the financing of its activities through cross-government security mechanisms and the continuation of counter-Daesh communications after the September 2026 military transition are documented institutional facts.

The use of private contractors and locally credible media channels is a plausible and operationally significant model for delivering such programmes. The disclosed Yalla-related material describes arrangements that, if established through contractual and editorial records, would raise substantial questions concerning concealed sponsorship and media independence.

The financial evidence remains asymmetrical. Official accounts demonstrate the size and structure of government-wide security financing, while the reported Yalla allocations have not been independently reconciled with detailed public expenditure records. Similarly, government performance reporting establishes the claimed reach of the Counter-Daesh Communications Cell without proving the effectiveness of any particular local media channel.

The strategic consequence is that the control of information cannot be evaluated solely through the ownership of media organisations or the presence of foreign financing. It requires identifying the authority that commissions the message, the organisation that pays for production, the party exercising editorial control, the institution presenting the material and the audience’s knowledge of those relationships.

For Iraq, these distinctions determine whether international assistance strengthens domestic information institutions or creates dependencies that reduce their effective autonomy. For Britain, they determine whether counterterrorism communications are consistent with the governance standards, public accountability and institutional credibility necessary for a durable bilateral relationship.

The central finding of Pillar I is that the machinery of strategic communication can survive the military structures associated with its creation. Establishing the legitimacy of that machinery requires more than demonstrating operational effectiveness. It requires determining whether its financial authority, contractual control and public identity can withstand institutional scrutiny.

---

PILLAR II — INFLUENCE MECHANISMS, SOVEREIGNTY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Analytical scope: This second pillar examines the mechanisms through which foreign-sponsored communications may affect public perceptions, the institutional and legal thresholds separating legitimate cooperation from improper interference, and the particular risks arising from Iraq’s political, linguistic and regional divisions. Historical programme material is assessed alongside official British records, Iraqi constitutional provisions, international legal instruments and public-opinion evidence available as of 12 October 2026.

Chapter 5. Behavioural Communication, Audience Segmentation and the Management of Public Perception

The transition from information delivery to the deliberate modification of attitudes

Principal judgment. The strategic significance of behavioural communications lies in their ability to transform ordinary information distribution into a structured attempt to influence how individuals interpret their circumstances, evaluate institutions and make social or political decisions. Such programmes are not inherently unlawful or illegitimate, but their institutional character changes substantially when behavioural objectives are prescribed by a foreign government, delivered through seemingly independent domestic media and withheld from the audience’s understanding of the publication’s sponsorship.

Contemporary strategic communications cannot be adequately understood through the traditional distinction between truthful information and demonstrably false propaganda. Information may be factually correct while being selectively presented to encourage a particular interpretation, reinforce a preferred institutional relationship or reduce receptivity to alternative political narratives. The decisive variables include the identity of the commissioner, the audience’s awareness of that relationship, the characteristics used to select recipients and the outcomes against which campaign performance is evaluated.

The disclosed operational descriptions associated with British-sponsored communications in Iraq identify an approach centred on personal agency, community cohesion, resilience and the cultivation of constructive social attitudes. The stated behavioural ambitions extend beyond persuading individuals to reject an identifiable extremist organisation, embracing a broader conception of how citizens understand opportunity, identity, social responsibility and relations with institutions.

These objectives require analytical separation. Encouraging a young person to access education or employment is different from encouraging support for a particular political authority, even where both activities employ similar storytelling techniques. A counter-extremism initiative may promote legitimate civic participation while also offering its sponsor opportunities to influence perceptions of government effectiveness or foreign policy. The existence of overlapping benefits does not establish a concealed political purpose, but it makes programme design, selection criteria and evaluation records especially consequential.

Official British reporting confirms the broader policy development toward programmes addressing trust, cohesion and reintegration. The Counter-Daesh Communications Cell’s activities, as described by the UK government, incorporated initiatives intended to improve relationships between vulnerable communities and legitimate institutions while reducing the social conditions associated with extremist recruitment. The government also reported audience engagement across several regional theatres, establishing the institutional relevance of behavioural objectives without proving the particular methods or impact of every implementing organisation.

Source: Conflict, Stability and Security Fund Annual Report 2022 to 2023 — UK Government — January 2024.

The mechanism of influence: salience, credibility, identity and reinforcement

The influence potential of a communications campaign arises through a sequence of analytically distinct processes, beginning with audience exposure and progressing, where circumstances permit, toward changes in evaluation or behaviour.

The first process concerns salience, or the relative prominence given to particular subjects within an individual’s information environment. A media platform cannot determine every belief held by its audience, but repeated attention to selected subjects may affect which problems people consider important and which issues receive comparatively little consideration. In a post-conflict society, decisions concerning the prominence of employment, corruption, reconciliation, security threats or institutional performance can shape the interpretive context of public debate.

The second process concerns credibility, which is influenced by the audience’s perception of the speaker’s knowledge, independence, familiarity and motives. An institutional message delivered through an official government channel may be evaluated as foreign policy communication, while similar content delivered through a locally recognised journalist or entertainer may receive a different reception because the intermediary appears closer to the audience’s everyday experience.

The third process involves social identity. Individuals do not interpret messages solely as isolated recipients of factual information; their responses may also depend upon perceived membership in linguistic, regional, religious, generational or occupational communities. A narrative can become persuasive when it connects an intended behaviour to a socially valued identity, although the direction and strength of that relationship require empirical examination rather than assumption.

The fourth process involves reinforcement through repeated encounters and multiple communication environments. A campaign appearing on a publisher’s website, social accounts, influencer channels and traditional broadcasters may provide repeated opportunities for exposure. This is not equivalent to demonstrating persuasion, because the same individuals may encounter content repeatedly without changing their beliefs.

Finally, behavioural change requires a transition from interpretation to action. A programme may increase awareness of a public service without increasing its utilisation, strengthen favourable attitudes without affecting political conduct, or generate highly visible engagement that reflects disagreement rather than acceptance.

These distinctions matter because programme documentation frequently places distribution statistics, engagement measures and intended social effects within the same performance narrative, although each belongs to a different level of causal evidence.

Table 5.1 — Behavioural influence mechanisms and evidentiary requirements

Mechanism	Operational characteristic	Potential effect	Necessary empirical evidence	Principal uncertainty
Agenda selection	Repeated editorial attention to designated subjects	Changes the relative prominence of public issues	Longitudinal content analysis and audience issue-ranking	Competing media influences
Narrative framing	Presentation of events through selected explanations or perspectives	Changes the interpretation of facts	Controlled message-comparison studies	Prior beliefs and contextual variation
Source credibility	Use of trusted local presenters or organisations	Increases willingness to consider information	Independent credibility surveys	Trust in the individual may not transfer to the message
Social identification	Content referencing cultural or communal experience	Increases perceived relevance	Segment-specific attitude measurement	Differences within identity groups
Emotional engagement	Personal testimony, humour and familiar storytelling	Increases attention or recall	Exposure and recall testing	Emotional response does not establish agreement
Repeated distribution	Publication across multiple channels	Increases opportunities for message exposure	Deduplicated reach and frequency records	Repeated exposure may produce fatigue
Participatory production	Audience contributions and local collaboration	Increases perceived ownership or relevance	Participation records and independent feedback	Participation may be selective
Behavioural evaluation	Assessment of decisions following exposure	Tests practical programme outcomes	Predefined outcomes, comparison groups and follow-up	Attribution to the intervention

This framework identifies the causal questions that should be investigated in a programme evaluation. It does not attribute each mechanism to a verified Yalla publication or establish that the intended effect was achieved.

Audience segmentation and the problem of political classification

Audience segmentation is a conventional practice in communications, market research and public service delivery, but its governance implications become more serious when it is applied to political perceptions in a fragile or divided society.

At the least intrusive end, segmentation can involve broad characteristics such as preferred language, general location or access to communications technology. Public-health programmes, for example, may distribute otherwise identical information in several languages to improve accessibility. This does not inherently involve political profiling.

More sensitive practices classify individuals according to political attitudes, religious affiliation, communal grievances, institutional trust or inferred susceptibility to a narrative. Where such classifications are used to determine the content an individual receives, the programme begins to resemble differentiated political persuasion rather than ordinary public information.

The disclosed British programme material refers to target-audience analysis, locally adapted narratives and the use of audience characteristics to identify communications opportunities. These descriptions indicate a strategic interest in differentiating audiences, but they do not establish the existence of a particular personal-data repository, the deployment of individual-level political targeting or the exact criteria used to select recipients of Yalla content.

That distinction is particularly important when evaluating claims of psychological manipulation. A contractor’s stated ability to analyse specific individuals does not prove that identifiable Iraqi citizens were subjected to personalised operations, that sensitive personal data were collected unlawfully or that the intended influence occurred.

Table 5.2 — Segmentation practices and increasing governance sensitivity

Segmentation category	Possible programme purpose	Information sensitivity	Main accountability requirement
Language preference	Deliver accessible information	Generally limited where lawfully collected	Appropriate data minimisation
Broad geographic area	Tailor public-service information	Moderate where linked to conflict exposure	Clear operational necessity
Age category	Adapt educational presentation	Greater concern where minors are involved	Safeguards appropriate to age
Media-consumption behaviour	Improve channel selection	Depends on identifiability and tracking	Transparent collection and retention practices
Institutional confidence	Understand public perceptions of authority	Politically sensitive	Independent assessment of research purpose
Religious or ethnic identity	Address community-specific needs	Highly sensitive	Strong necessity, proportionality and protection safeguards
Political affiliation or preference	Analyse political attitudes	Highly sensitive	Applicable legal basis and stringent limitations
Individual-level vulnerability	Offer specialised support	Potentially highly sensitive	Strict purpose limitation and protection against exploitation

The central analytical distinction is between understanding population needs and using sensitive characteristics to exploit political vulnerabilities. The same dataset may support both purposes, making collection authority, approved objectives, access controls and subsequent use indispensable elements of institutional accountability.

Iraq’s empirical environment: institutional trust as a measurable constraint

A more precise assessment of potential influence requires contemporary evidence concerning how Iraqis evaluate their institutions rather than relying on assumptions that particular communities are uniformly alienated or politically receptive.

Arab Barometer’s eighth wave of research, conducted between 13 May and 19 July 2024, surveyed 2,408 Iraqi citizens through face-to-face interviews in Arabic and Kurdish. The published methodology identifies a national margin of error of approximately ±2 percentage points, with geographical coverage excluding Duhok governorate.

The survey found significant differences in public confidence among Iraqi institutions. Trust in the armed forces reached 77%, compared with 71% for the police, 42% for the legal system, 34% for government, 34% for civil-society organisations and 21% for parliament.

These findings are relevant because they challenge any assumption that public confidence is uniformly distributed across the Iraqi state. Citizens may regard security institutions as legitimate while expressing limited confidence in representative political institutions, producing very different contexts for communications concerning security, governance and political accountability.

The results describe public opinion at the time of the 2024 survey; they do not establish current October 2026 attitudes or indicate how respondents reacted to any British-sponsored programme.

Source: Amid Persistent Challenges, Iraqis Express Cautious Optimism in Latest Survey — Arab Barometer — December 2024.

Table 5.3 — Institutional trust in Iraq, Arab Barometer Wave VIII

Institution	Trust, 2024	Interpretation for communications assessment
Armed forces	77%	Relatively strong security-sector credibility
Police	71%	Broad confidence in domestic policing
Religious leaders	48%	Social credibility exceeding several formal political institutions
Prime Minister	45%	Personal leadership trust distinct from government-wide confidence
Courts and legal system	42%	Intermediate institutional confidence
Tribal leaders	39%	Continuing relevance of informal leadership
Government	34%	Limited aggregate confidence in public administration
Civil-society organisations	34%	Civil society cannot automatically be presumed more trusted
Parliament	21%	Particularly weak confidence in representative institutions

Source: Arab Barometer, Iraq Wave VIII, fieldwork May–July 2024. Percentages measure reported trust, not the effectiveness of communications directed toward those institutions.

The observed 56-percentage-point difference between trust in the armed forces and parliament is calculated directly from the survey results. This substantial difference illustrates why a generic concept of public trust is insufficient for evaluating media interventions concerned with legitimacy.

For a programme promoting confidence in security institutions, existing favourable perceptions may create a different baseline than a programme addressing parliamentary legitimacy. Any evaluation that aggregates both outcomes into a single measure of community resilience risks concealing these differences.

The survey also documented improvement in government confidence from 26% in 2022 to 34% in 2024, an increase of eight percentage points. This movement cannot be attributed to British communications programmes without evidence isolating their effect from changes in public services, domestic political developments, security conditions and other influences.

The methodological problem of determining whether persuasion occurred

A credible evaluation of foreign-sponsored communications should distinguish programme execution from behavioural outcomes and identify the conditions under which any observed change can be attributed to the intervention.

Digital-platform dashboards can show that content was displayed, viewed or shared. Such data do not establish whether the recipient believed the message, opposed it, remembered it or acted because of it. Even a statistically significant association between exposure and favourable attitudes would not establish causation if people already sympathetic to a message were more likely to follow the publisher.

An appropriate research design would first define the intended outcome independently of the campaign’s distribution measures. If the objective were improved social acceptance of returning families, the outcome might concern willingness to live alongside returnees or support for their access to services, measured using ethically designed and representative research.

The evaluation would then require a credible comparison between exposed and less-exposed populations, accounting for differences in security conditions, demographics, geography and prior beliefs. Where randomised exposure is neither feasible nor ethically appropriate, repeated surveys and carefully selected comparison populations may improve inference, although residual uncertainty would remain.

The limitations of the official performance record are illustrated by the British government’s reporting of the A Journey Home campaign, which it described as reaching 40 million viewers while contributing to reduced hostility toward returning families. The government attributed positive social effects to the campaign, but the public summary does not expose sufficient counterfactual analysis to quantify its independent causal contribution.

Source: Conflict, Stability and Security Fund Annual Report 2023 to 2024 — UK Government — December 2024.

Table 5.4 — Research designs for testing influence claims

Evaluation approach	Suitable research question	Evidence produced	Principal limitation
Content analysis	Which messages and frames were published?	Observable editorial patterns	Does not establish audience effects
Representative cross-sectional survey	What attitudes prevail at a specified date?	Population-level estimates	Cannot reliably establish change caused by a campaign
Repeated cross-sectional surveys	How do attitudes change across periods?	Population trends	External events may explain the movement
Panel survey	How do the same respondents’ views change?	Individual-level transitions	Attrition and exposure measurement
Controlled message experiment	Does a specific message affect immediate responses?	More credible short-run causal inference	Limited external validity and ethical constraints
Quasi-experimental comparison	Did exposure correspond to different outcomes?	Conditional causal evidence	Dependence on identifying assumptions
Qualitative interviews	How do people interpret and assess content?	Contextual understanding	Limited population generalisability
Independent programme audit	Was the campaign delivered as authorised?	Governance and compliance evidence	May not establish persuasion

The selection of methods must correspond to the question being investigated. An analysis of editorial direction requires contractual and publication records, whereas an analysis of psychological impact requires audience research. Neither can substitute for the other.

Behavioural operations and the ethics of vulnerability

Post-conflict conditions create legitimate needs for communication concerning public services, community safety, employment, rehabilitation and reconciliation. They may also expose individuals to conditions that make particular types of persuasion ethically sensitive, including insecurity, displacement, social exclusion and dependence on institutions for essential assistance.

The analytical concern is not that vulnerable populations should receive less information. Rather, communications directed toward them should avoid exploiting their vulnerability to achieve objectives unrelated to their welfare or expressed needs.

An information campaign that explains access to rehabilitation services can enhance individual autonomy. A campaign that conceals its sponsor while attempting to redirect political allegiance may implicate different ethical concerns, even if it uses similar production methods.

The distinction requires examination of purpose, transparency, content, participant protection and the freedom of audiences to reject the message without adverse consequences.

Key judgments — Chapter 5

Behavioural communications should be evaluated as interventions with identifiable objectives, targeting criteria, information-processing mechanisms and measurable outcomes, rather than being classified solely by the apparent subject matter of their publications. The available historical programme material raises consequential questions concerning differentiated audiences and concealed sponsorship, but does not independently establish individualised manipulation or completed behavioural effects.

Iraq’s 2024 public-opinion evidence demonstrates pronounced differences in institutional trust, creating an empirically heterogeneous communications environment in which claims of uniform public susceptibility are unsustainable. The strongest conclusion is that locally credible media can provide channels through which externally commissioned narratives reach politically relevant audiences, while the actual effect of such exposure remains a separate question requiring causal evidence.

What would change the assessment: Authenticated audience-targeting specifications, records documenting the use of sensitive personal characteristics, independent pre- and post-campaign research and a complete archive of delivered material would substantially improve the attribution of particular techniques and effects.

Open official record: Contractor audience-analysis instruments, targeting policies, data-protection assessments, campaign-level evaluation reports and independent documentation of observed behavioural outcomes.

Chapter 6. Information Sovereignty, Journalism and the Boundary Between Public Diplomacy and Covert Influence

Information sovereignty as a problem of political autonomy rather than control over speech

Principal judgment. A state’s information sovereignty is not equivalent to a governmental right to control every communication circulating within its territory. It concerns the capacity of domestic institutions and citizens to exercise political judgment without unlawful external coercion, while preserving freedom of expression, independent journalism and legitimate international exchange. Foreign-sponsored media activity becomes institutionally contentious when concealed external direction interferes with the audience’s ability to identify the interests and authority behind political communications.

This distinction is particularly important in Iraq, where external security cooperation, international assistance and regional political competition coexist within a constitutionally protected framework of expression and media activity. The presence of foreign financing does not automatically constitute a violation of sovereignty; equally, the absence of military force does not eliminate the possibility of objectionable interference with domestic political processes.

An excessively broad conception of information sovereignty could enable censorship by allowing national authorities to describe legitimate criticism or independent foreign-supported journalism as hostile interference. An excessively narrow conception, confined to territorial intrusion or armed intervention, could overlook cases in which concealed government direction materially distorts domestic political discourse.

The relevant institutional problem is therefore how to distinguish the protection of political autonomy from the restriction of lawful expression.

The democratic importance of knowing who is speaking

Journalistic independence is generally understood through several interrelated protections, including editorial autonomy, freedom from improper governmental interference, pluralism of ownership, professional accountability and the ability of journalists to investigate powerful institutions.

UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators provide a particularly relevant international framework because they do not reduce media independence to a single legal or financial condition. The framework examines the regulatory environment, ownership transparency, editorial independence, media plurality, professional capacity and the ability of media to support public debate.

Its significance for the Iraqi case is methodological. Assessing whether a publisher is independent requires examining institutional relationships rather than accepting either the publisher’s self-description or an external allegation as conclusive.

A media organisation may receive financial assistance from a foreign donor and remain editorially independent. Conversely, a commercially incorporated publisher may lack meaningful autonomy if a government, political party or contractor controls its editorial agenda.

UNESCO also emphasises that international assistance intended to develop media institutions should not undermine their integrity or independence. This provides a relevant policy standard for evaluating assistance programmes without incorrectly treating UNESCO guidance as a directly enforceable criminal prohibition.

Sources: Media Development Indicators — UNESCO; International Programme for the Development of Communication: About — UNESCO.

Public diplomacy, strategic communications and unattributed influence

Several categories of international communication must be separated because they differ in authority, disclosure, intent and accountability.

Public diplomacy generally involves communications through which a state presents its policies, culture or perspectives to foreign audiences. The governmental source is ordinarily identifiable, permitting audiences to interpret the message within its diplomatic context.

Strategic communications describes a broader process of coordinating communication in support of organisational objectives. It can include overt government statements, international broadcasting, public-information campaigns, cultural diplomacy and communications commissioned through third parties.

Sponsored media content is material financed or commissioned by an external organisation. Such content may be legitimate, but the adequacy of its sponsorship disclosure and degree of editorial independence must be examined.

Unattributed influence activity involves deliberate measures to prevent an audience from identifying the actual source or sponsor of communications designed to affect perceptions or behaviour. Such concealment can produce ethical and governance concerns even when individual factual statements are accurate.

Covert state influence is a more specific category in which governmental involvement is deliberately concealed and the activity is directed toward an external political or social objective. The existence of concealment does not automatically resolve the activity’s legality under domestic or international law, but it changes the transparency and accountability assessment.

Disinformation requires attention to the falsity or misleading nature of the information and, under commonly used policy definitions, its intentional dissemination. It should not be used as a synonym for every concealed-sponsorship arrangement.

Table 6.1 — Institutional classification of external communications

Activity	Sponsor identification	Editorial authority	Characteristic purpose	Principal governance concern
Official public diplomacy	Usually explicit	Foreign governmental institution	Explain policies and positions	Accuracy and diplomatic accountability
Independent donor-funded journalism	Donor disclosed where appropriate	Publisher protected by editorial safeguards	Journalism and public information	Donor interference and financial dependence
Publicly sponsored stabilisation campaign	Sponsor ordinarily identifiable	Defined by programme agreement	Public welfare or security outcomes	Proportionality and host-state cooperation
Commercially sponsored content	Sponsorship disclosed under applicable rules	Sponsor and publisher share defined responsibilities	Promote commissioned objectives	Adequate advertising identification
Unattributed political communication	Sponsor concealed	Requires documentary determination	Influence political perceptions	Misrepresentation and lack of accountability
Covert state-directed influence	Governmental role deliberately concealed	Government or its agent directs relevant activity	Achieve governmental strategic objectives	Sovereignty, attribution and legality
False or deceptive information campaign	Varies	Varies	Mislead or manipulate recipients	Information integrity and possible legal violations

These classifications are analytically useful but do not themselves constitute distinct statutory offences under a universal legal code. Their legal consequences depend upon applicable national law, conduct, jurisdiction, contractual arrangements and the rights affected.

The Iraqi constitutional balance

Article 38 of the Iraqi Constitution guarantees freedom of expression through all means, freedom of the press and media, and freedom of peaceful assembly, subject to the constitutional formulation concerning public order and morality.

Article 37 also protects individuals against intellectual, political and religious coercion, while Article 39 addresses freedom of association and political parties. Article 40 protects the freedom of communication and correspondence, with the relevant constitutional qualifications concerning lawful restrictions.

These provisions establish that the constitutional analysis cannot focus exclusively on the prerogatives of the Iraqi state. Iraqi citizens and media organisations possess rights that public authorities must respect when responding to concerns about foreign influence.

The protection of journalism creates a difficult but necessary distinction between requiring appropriate transparency of foreign governmental sponsorship and imposing broad restrictions on foreign-supported speech.

A proportionate transparency framework would seek to identify governmental commissioning and material editorial direction without automatically treating foreign grants, international academic cooperation or civil-society assistance as illicit activity.

The Iraqi Constitution also recognises Arabic and Kurdish as official languages under Article 4, a provision relevant to the legitimacy of multilingual information services and the need to avoid treating minority-language publication as inherently suspicious.

Source: Constitution of the Republic of Iraq — Iraqi Council of Representatives, Articles 4, 37–40.

The difference between financial transparency and editorial surveillance

Transparency requirements can themselves create risks if they are designed without safeguards.

A law requiring media organisations to disclose material financing from foreign states may improve the public’s ability to identify political sponsorship. A law requiring journalists to reveal every confidential source, donor contact or unpublished editorial discussion could undermine investigative reporting and expose contributors to retaliation.

The two approaches have fundamentally different consequences for press freedom.

The relevant objective should be to reveal material relationships of political commissioning and control, not to create a general governmental entitlement to inspect newsroom operations.

This distinction is consistent with the wider international protection of independent journalism. The United Nations Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 34 identifies freedom of expression as essential to transparency and accountability, while requiring restrictions on expression to satisfy the conditions established by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Committee also emphasises the importance of independent and diverse media and the protection of journalistic activity.

Source: General Comment No. 34, Article 19: Freedoms of Opinion and Expression — UN Human Rights Committee — September 2011.

Table 6.2 — A rights-preserving media transparency framework

Regulatory objective	Appropriate disclosure	Necessary safeguard	Risk if poorly designed
Identify foreign governmental sponsorship	Sponsor, material funding relationship and commissioned purpose	Thresholds tied to meaningful influence	Excessive burden on small independent outlets
Establish beneficial control	Ownership and relevant control arrangements	Protection of private personal information	Exposure of unrelated individuals
Distinguish journalism from sponsored campaigns	Clear identification of commissioned political content	No general prior approval of journalism	Governmental editorial censorship
Protect confidential sources	Disclosure limited to legally justified cases	Independent judicial supervision	Chilling investigative reporting
Audit public financing	Contracting authority, programme value and recipient records	Legitimate commercial and security confidentiality	Hidden public expenditure
Protect audience data	Clear collection purpose and access limitations	Data minimisation and independent oversight	Political profiling and privacy violations
Enforce compliance	Proportionate administrative procedures	Due process and meaningful appeal	Politically selective enforcement
Preserve pluralism	Uniform rules regardless of political viewpoint	Institutional independence of regulator	Suppression of dissenting media

This framework should be understood as a policy assessment rather than an assertion that Iraq has already enacted each proposed mechanism in the form described.

Why concealed sponsorship can damage otherwise legitimate programmes

Counterterrorism communications depend heavily on trust because they often seek to persuade audiences already exposed to competing institutional narratives.

When a programme promotes reconciliation, tolerance or reintegration, the substantive message may provide real public benefit. However, if audiences subsequently discover that its apparent local independence was materially overstated, the resulting loss of trust may extend beyond the individual campaign.

The mechanism involves reputational spillover.

A controversy concerning one publisher can create suspicion toward other community organisations receiving international support, including those whose activities are genuinely independent and transparent. The risk may be especially pronounced when allegations of concealed foreign sponsorship are used by political actors to discredit civil society or independent journalists more broadly.

This consequence creates a practical argument for credible disclosure that does not depend exclusively on ethical principle. Concealment may generate short-term distribution advantages while imposing longer-term costs on institutional trust.

The exact balance cannot be established without audience research, but the potential trade-off is directly relevant to public programme governance.

Media independence as a strategic asset

A genuinely independent media environment benefits national security because it allows citizens to scrutinise official claims, identify administrative failures and distinguish public information from political advocacy.

In a politically fragmented environment, independent journalism can provide information that is not contingent upon the preferences of a security institution, political party or foreign sponsor.

The same independence can create legitimate tensions for international assistance programmes. A donor seeking favourable measurable results may prefer a predictable publishing strategy, whereas a newsroom exercising genuine autonomy may investigate or criticise the donor’s policies.

That tension is not a defect in journalism; it is one of the tests of institutional independence.

An enforceable editorial independence agreement must therefore protect the publisher’s ability to reject commissioned political framing, investigate funding institutions and publish relevant criticism without automatically losing financial support.

The sovereignty consequences of post-coalition communications

Following the conclusion of the coalition military mission, the continued presence of foreign-supported information programmes raises questions different from those associated with an active military coalition.

Where communication is openly coordinated with Iraqi authorities, the principal issues concern programme effectiveness, proportionality, public transparency and the protection of domestic media.

Where activities are conducted without host-state knowledge or involve concealed attempts to influence domestic political choices, the sovereignty dimension becomes more consequential.

Nevertheless, neither the use of a contractor nor the absence of public disclosure proves that a programme was unauthorised by Baghdad. Host-state consent, where relevant, may exist in agreements or administrative arrangements that have not been made public.

The analytical requirement is to establish the actual scope of authorisation before making a legal finding.

Key judgments — Chapter 6

Foreign financing, independently exercised journalism, transparent public diplomacy and covert political direction are different institutional phenomena, notwithstanding the possibility that they may operate through similar media infrastructure. The protection of Iraqi information sovereignty must therefore be pursued consistently with constitutional guarantees of expression, association and media freedom.

A defensible transparency system should prioritise the identification of material governmental sponsorship and editorial authority while safeguarding confidential journalism, legitimate foreign assistance and independent civic activity. The long-term strategic danger of undisclosed external direction is not confined to an individual campaign’s influence; it includes the possibility of undermining trust in domestic media and international stabilisation programmes more generally.

What would change the assessment: Authenticated evidence concerning Iraqi governmental consent, formal sponsorship disclosures, binding editorial safeguards or censorship arising from investigations into external financing would materially affect the governance assessment.

Open official record: Applicable Iraqi media regulations, programme-level host-state authorisations, material donor-disclosure agreements and judicial or administrative decisions concerning foreign-sponsored political communications.

Chapter 7. Domestic and International Legal Frameworks: State Responsibility, Disclosure and Institutional Oversight

The legal distinction between concealed influence, unlawful intervention and attributable state conduct

Principal judgment. The legal assessment of foreign-sponsored information operations requires separate determinations concerning the attribution of conduct to a state, the existence of an applicable international obligation, the character of the alleged interference, domestic authority for public expenditure and any violations of individual rights. Concealed sponsorship may be an important indicator of questionable governance, but international law does not establish that every unattributed foreign communications activity is automatically unlawful.

This distinction is essential in an investigation involving state institutions, commercial contractors, locally incorporated organisations and individual content creators. The legal relationship between the United Kingdom and a contractor differs from the relationship between that contractor and an Iraqi publisher, while the consequences for Iraqi citizens depend upon additional questions concerning privacy, political participation, freedom of expression and the information actually communicated.

The central legal task is therefore to avoid collapsing several inquiries into a single accusation. Proof of a British-financed communications programme does not, by itself, establish the international responsibility of the United Kingdom for every statement made by its implementing organisations. Proof that a contractor followed governmental instructions may support attribution of particular conduct, but a separate question remains whether that conduct breached an international obligation.

State sovereignty and the prohibition of intervention

The principle of sovereign equality is expressed in Article 2(1) of the United Nations Charter, while Article 2(4) prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state.

Article 2(7) principally limits intervention by the United Nations in matters essentially within domestic jurisdiction, subject to the Charter’s enforcement framework. It should not be cited as though it independently establishes a comprehensive prohibition applicable to every form of foreign governmental communication.

The customary international-law prohibition of intervention provides a more directly relevant framework for assessing state interference in the political affairs of another state.

The International Court of Justice addressed this principle in its 1986 judgment in Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua. The Court identified the freedom of states to choose their political, economic, social and cultural systems and conduct foreign policy, while treating coercion in relation to such choices as central to prohibited intervention.

The judgment is particularly significant because it establishes that wrongful intervention is not confined to direct military invasion. However, it does not support the opposite proposition that every attempt by a foreign state to influence public opinion amounts to an internationally wrongful act.

For Iraq, the relevant legal inquiry would examine whether an attributable British operation involved coercive interference in matters reserved to Iraqi political decision-making. Concealment could be relevant to the evidence and context, but the precise nature of the conduct, its purpose and its relationship to protected sovereign choices would remain decisive.

Sources: Charter of the United Nations — United Nations, Articles 1–2; Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua, Judgment of 27 June 1986 — International Court of Justice.

Table 7.1 — International-law tests relevant to foreign information operations

Legal issue	Governing principle	Evidence required	Limitation on legal inference
Sovereign equality	UN Charter, Article 2(1)	Conduct affecting the relationship between states	General sovereign interests do not establish a specific breach
Prohibition on force	UN Charter, Article 2(4)	Threat or use of force attributable to a state	Communications activity is not ordinarily equivalent to armed force
Non-intervention	Customary law reflected in ICJ jurisprudence	Interference involving coercion in protected state choices	Political persuasion alone does not automatically satisfy the coercion requirement
State attribution	ILC Articles 4, 5, 8 and 11	Organ status, governmental authority, direction or control, or adoption	Financing alone is not a universal attribution test
Existence of wrongful conduct	ILC Articles 2 and 12	Attribution plus breach of an obligation in force	Attribution and wrongfulness are distinct
Host-state consent	ILC Article 20	Valid consent by the competent state authority within its scope	Consent does not authorise conduct beyond its terms
Freedom of expression	ICCPR Article 19	Identifiable interference with protected rights	Restrictions require applicable legal justification
Privacy	ICCPR Article 17	Unlawful or arbitrary interference	The collection of personal data is not automatically proof of a violation

The framework deliberately distinguishes the existence of a legal norm from the evidence necessary to establish its violation. It does not suggest that each norm was breached in the Iraqi programmes under examination.

Attribution of private-contractor conduct under international law

The International Law Commission’s Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts provide the principal framework for assessing when conduct may be legally attributed to a state.

Although the articles are not themselves a freestanding treaty, they are influential in the interpretation and application of international responsibility, with relevant provisions reflecting established principles of customary international law.

Article 4 concerns conduct by organs of the state, including entities exercising governmental functions within the state’s institutional structure. Article 5 addresses persons or entities empowered by domestic law to exercise elements of governmental authority.

Article 8 addresses conduct carried out on the instructions of, or under the direction or control of, a state. Article 11 concerns conduct that the state subsequently acknowledges and adopts as its own.

These distinctions are directly relevant to a communications contractor acting under a government agreement.

A contractor receiving public money does not automatically become a state organ. A commercial company commissioned to produce media does not necessarily exercise governmental authority. However, particular conduct may be attributable where the required standards of governmental instruction, direction or control are established.

The identification of government objectives, contractual approval requirements and implementation instructions is therefore legally significant, although the applicable attribution test must be satisfied for the conduct at issue.

The inquiry must be specific. A general contractual relationship cannot automatically attribute all statements by every subcontractor, journalist or participating influencer to the commissioning government.

Source: Materials on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, Second Edition — United Nations Office of Legal Affairs — 2023.

Table 7.2 — Legal attribution across an outsourced communications chain

Actor	Possible legal relationship	Central attribution question	Essential records
UK minister or government department	State organ	Was the relevant act performed in an official capacity?	Authorisations and official instructions
UK government programme office	State administrative structure	Did officials direct the contested activity?	Programme approvals and correspondence
Prime contractor	Private contractual entity	Was the particular conduct instructed, directed or controlled by the state?	Contract, operational instructions and approvals
Local subcontractor	Commercial or civil-society intermediary	What governmental control, if any, extended to its conduct?	Subcontract and commissioning records
Iraqi media publisher	Domestic legal entity	Who controlled the relevant publication decision?	Editorial agreement and approval history
Individual content creator	Journalist, employee or independent producer	Was the specific content commissioned or independently produced?	Employment terms and publication evidence
Foreign governmental partner	Separate state institution	Did it independently direct, assist or adopt the relevant conduct?	Partnership and intergovernmental records

The table should not be interpreted as a presumption that liability passes automatically through each contractual relationship. Each legal connection requires independent assessment against the relevant attribution rules.

The importance of separating attribution from breach

Even where conduct is attributable to a state, international responsibility requires the additional establishment of a breach of an applicable international obligation.

Article 2 of the ILC framework expresses this distinction through the requirement that conduct be attributable to the state and constitute a breach of an international obligation.

This requirement protects the analysis from two common errors.

The first is treating governmental secrecy as equivalent to international illegality. States may legitimately protect some security-related activities from public disclosure, although secrecy can create accountability issues and does not excuse violations of law.

The second is assuming that the use of private companies eliminates governmental responsibility. If legally relevant direction or control is established, contractual outsourcing cannot by itself defeat attribution.

A proper assessment of the Iraq allegations would therefore identify a concrete publication, instruction or operational act, determine whether it is attributable to the United Kingdom, specify the international obligation allegedly breached and examine any applicable consent or justification.

Without that sequence, an allegation of illegal interference would exceed the established legal evidence.

Host-state consent and the scope of bilateral cooperation

Foreign security assistance may operate pursuant to agreements or arrangements with the receiving state.

Where Iraq has validly consented to a particular communications activity, that consent may be relevant to the international legal assessment, provided the conduct falls within its authorised scope.

However, consent must be evaluated according to the authority of the consenting institution, the subject matter covered and the conditions attached to the agreement.

A general agreement for military training or counterterrorism assistance cannot automatically be assumed to authorise every form of domestic political messaging, confidential audience profiling or externally directed media production.

Equally, a programme whose funding is undisclosed to the public may nevertheless be known to relevant Iraqi authorities, making the relationship between public transparency and governmental consent analytically distinct.

Article 20 of the ILC framework addresses valid consent as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness within the limits of the consent given. It does not establish that all otherwise wrongful conduct becomes permissible through an unrestricted or presumed authorisation.

Source: Materials on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, Article 20 — United Nations Office of Legal Affairs — 2023.

British domestic authority and oversight

The United Kingdom’s domestic legal position requires careful separation between foreign-policy communications, public contracting and intelligence activity.

The Intelligence Services Act 1994 establishes statutory functions for the Secret Intelligence Service, including obtaining and providing information concerning persons outside the British Islands and performing other tasks relating to their actions or intentions, within the purposes prescribed by the Act.

Section 1 therefore establishes a statutory framework for an intelligence service; it does not prove that a particular media contractor was acting for that service.

Similarly, the existence of a confidential government contract does not establish that its commissioning authority was an intelligence agency rather than a diplomatic, security or stabilisation programme.

Describing M&C Saatchi or another commercial organisation as an intelligence-service intermediary would require a separate evidentiary basis linking the particular activity to an identifiable service or an authorised intelligence function.

The distinction is material because intelligence oversight, public procurement scrutiny and departmental programme accountability involve different institutional mandates.

Source: Intelligence Services Act 1994, Section 1 — UK Parliament.

The Human Rights Act 1998, particularly Section 6, establishes that public authorities must act compatibly with Convention rights, subject to the Act’s qualifications. Whether and how those obligations apply to particular activities affecting individuals outside the United Kingdom requires examination of jurisdiction, the conduct of the public authority and relevant judicial interpretation.

The Act should not be treated as automatically extending every domestic procedural obligation to all overseas communications undertaken through commercial contractors.

Source: Human Rights Act 1998, Section 6 — UK Parliament.

Table 7.3 — Distinct UK accountability pathways

Accountability pathway	Principal question	Potential scrutiny mechanism	Important limitation
Departmental governance	Was the programme authorised and managed properly?	Ministerial accountability and departmental audit	Confidential programme details may be restricted
Public expenditure	Were funds used for approved purposes?	Accounting officers, audit and parliamentary examination	Aggregate accounts may not identify individual publishers
Procurement	Was the supplier lawfully engaged?	Contract records and procurement review	Historical and security-specific rules vary
Intelligence oversight	Did an intelligence agency direct relevant conduct?	Applicable specialist oversight arrangements	Jurisdiction depends on agency and activity
Human-rights compliance	Were protected rights unlawfully interfered with?	Judicial and institutional review where jurisdiction exists	Overseas application must be established
Contractual liability	Were legal and commercial obligations breached?	Contract enforcement and related proceedings	Contract breach does not automatically establish public-law illegality
Political accountability	Were Parliament and the public materially misled?	Parliamentary questions and committee scrutiny	Requires evidence concerning statements and knowledge

These pathways should not be conflated, particularly where the allegations concern activities commissioned under counterterrorism or foreign-policy programmes rather than proven intelligence operations.

Freedom of opinion, expression and privacy under the ICCPR

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides an additional legal framework for examining communications that affect individuals.

Article 19 protects freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas. The Human Rights Committee has interpreted the protection of opinion as especially strong and has emphasised the importance of an independent press and public accountability.

Article 17 protects against arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, making it potentially relevant where an information operation involves identifiable personal data, intrusive profiling or unauthorised access to private communications.

However, the legal implications depend on the facts. Audience research using appropriately collected aggregated data is not equivalent to unlawful personal surveillance. An attempt to persuade members of the public does not automatically violate the freedom of opinion.

Article 19(3) also establishes conditions for restrictions on freedom of expression, requiring that they be provided by law and necessary for specified legitimate purposes. Article 20 addresses certain forms of prohibited advocacy, including advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred constituting incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.

These provisions are relevant both to the conduct of external communications and to any Iraqi governmental response. Measures designed to expose foreign sponsorship must not become a pretext for suppressing otherwise protected journalism.

Source: General Comment No. 34: Freedoms of Opinion and Expression — UN Human Rights Committee — September 2011.

The legal consequences of alleged manipulation through communal identities

Communications targeting religious or ethnic communities require particular care because identity-based persuasion can intersect with both protected expression and prohibited forms of incitement.

A campaign that encourages peaceful relations between religious groups may advance legitimate public interests. A campaign that distributes materially misleading claims designed to provoke discrimination, hostility or violence may raise different legal concerns.

The content, context, speaker, intent, audience and likelihood of resulting harm are all relevant considerations when assessing possible incitement. No conclusion about unlawful advocacy can be reached merely because a campaign addressed Sunni, Shia or Kurdish audiences.

Similarly, the existence of political messaging concerning Iranian influence or regional autonomy does not automatically satisfy the international-law threshold for coercive intervention.

The analysis requires the actual messages and evidence of the relevant governmental involvement, rather than inference from the existence of political sensitivity.

An evidence-preserving accountability process

The legal value of further investigation depends substantially on the integrity of documentary preservation.

The first requirement is to establish the provenance of contractor material, including original file metadata, authorship, document versions, dates, internal references and the relationship between draft proposals and final agreements.

The second is to reconcile funding records with the legal entities receiving payments, distinguishing invoiced services from approved budgets and completed deliverables.

The third is to preserve the publication record, including dates, language versions, account identities, sponsorship notices and relevant editorial changes.

The fourth is to determine the extent of actual governmental instruction or control over the content at issue.

The fifth is to obtain evidence concerning host-state knowledge and authorisation, where such material exists.

Any public inquiry should also protect legitimate confidential journalism, sensitive personal information and the physical safety of Iraqi contributors. A poorly structured investigation that publicly identifies individual freelancers without establishing their responsibility could expose them to retaliation without materially improving accountability.

Key judgments — Chapter 7

The international legal assessment of British-sponsored communications in Iraq turns on conduct-specific attribution, the identification of an applicable obligation and evidence of breach. Contractor financing and concealed sponsorship may justify investigation, but neither establishes international wrongfulness without the additional legal elements.

The ICJ’s non-intervention jurisprudence makes coercion central to the customary-law analysis, while the ILC framework requires careful evaluation of instructions, direction and control. British domestic law creates additional pathways for accountability, although the identity of the commissioning department and any intelligence-service involvement must be established rather than assumed.

What would change the assessment: Verified instructions directing particular political communications, evidence of coercive interference in protected Iraqi political choices, identifiable violations of personal rights or authoritative documentation of host-state consent would materially alter the legal evaluation.

Open official record: Applicable contracting and departmental authorisations, intergovernmental agreements, editorial directives, data-governance documentation and any competent judicial or parliamentary findings concerning the relevant activities.

Chapter 8. Sectarian Identity, Kurdish Politics, Iranian Influence and the Risks of Narrative Intervention

Iraq’s political diversity as a constraint on external information operations

Principal judgment. Iraq’s political and communal diversity creates a communications environment in which identical narratives can acquire different meanings across regions, institutions and population groups. External programmes addressing national unity, religious identity, Kurdish political preferences or Iranian influence therefore operate within politically consequential relationships that cannot be reduced to a simple competition between foreign and domestic opinion.

The central analytical danger is not that communications tailored to particular communities are inherently illegitimate. It is that programmes designed around assumptions concerning ethnic or religious identities may mischaracterise public preferences, reinforce existing divisions or introduce externally selected political priorities into domestic debates.

The historical British audience-analysis material raises questions concerning the treatment of sectarian identity, communal leadership and views of Iranian influence as variables in strategic communication. However, the available evidence does not establish that every theme identified in research was translated into a specific published campaign, nor that all resulting communications were disseminated through Yalla.

A distinction must consequently be maintained between the characteristics of Iraq’s public-opinion environment, the objectives described in historical planning documents and the verified delivery of particular political narratives.

The limits of treating Iraq as three homogeneous communities

Political analysis frequently describes Iraq through the categories of Shia Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. These categories remain relevant to institutional arrangements and political representation, but they are insufficient as a complete account of political behaviour.

Religious affiliation does not determine a uniform position on Iran, the United States, Kurdish autonomy, Iraqi nationalism or the legitimacy of particular political institutions. Regional economic conditions, historical experiences of violence, political-party affiliation, generational differences and access to public services can generate substantial variation within communities.

The distinction becomes critical when evaluating communications intended to influence social cohesion.

A programme built upon the assumption that a particular religious community is automatically receptive to one foreign policy narrative may direct resources toward an incorrectly defined audience. It may also unintentionally strengthen the idea that citizenship is principally organised through communal competition rather than shared institutions.

Conversely, a culturally informed initiative that recognises genuine linguistic and historical differences may improve access to information without reinforcing political separation.

Determining which effect is more plausible requires observable publication content and evidence concerning how audiences interpreted it.

National legitimacy and the coexistence of competing political loyalties

Iraqi citizens may simultaneously support national sovereignty, maintain religious or cultural relationships with neighbouring societies, favour economic cooperation with external powers and oppose particular forms of foreign political interference.

These positions are not inherently contradictory.

The distinction is especially relevant when examining attitudes toward Iran. Support for commercial relations with Iran does not necessarily imply approval of Iranian political influence inside Iraq. Concern about Iranian regional activity does not necessarily imply support for British, American or Israeli regional policies.

Any strategic communications analysis that forces respondents into a binary category of pro-Iranian or anti-Iranian sentiment risks misrepresenting the structure of Iraqi opinion.

Arab Barometer’s 2024 survey provides a clear empirical demonstration of these overlapping attitudes.

The survey reported that 42% of Iraqis favoured stronger economic relations with Iran, while 34% expressed a favourable view of Iran. At the same time, 70% considered Iranian political influence in the region a critical threat to national security, and 75% regarded Iran’s nuclear programme as a critical threat.

These findings do not represent a coherent anti-Iranian or pro-Iranian bloc. They indicate that different aspects of Iran’s relationship with Iraq are evaluated independently.

Source: Amid Persistent Challenges, Iraqis Express Cautious Optimism in Latest Survey — Arab Barometer — December 2024.

Table 8.1 — Iraqi perceptions of external powers and regional security, 2024

Indicator	Iraqi respondents	Interpretation
Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories considered a critical security threat	82%	Strong public concern concerning Palestine and regional security
Iranian nuclear programme considered a critical security threat	75%	Widespread concern about nuclear and regional escalation
Iranian political influence considered a critical security threat	70%	Significant concern about Iran’s regional political role
Development of US economic power considered a critical threat	64%	Concern extends beyond Iran to American power
Saudi political influence considered a critical threat	54%	Regional competition is not perceived exclusively through Iran
Chinese economic power considered a critical threat	37%	Different attitudes toward China’s external role
Support for stronger economic relations with Iran	42%	Economic cooperation remains attractive to a substantial constituency
Favourable view of Iran	34%	General favourability is lower than support for stronger economic relations

Source: Arab Barometer Wave VIII, Iraq 2024. Measures concern different questions and should not be combined into a single net-support index.

The simultaneous presence of economic pragmatism and security concern is analytically consequential because it limits the reliability of communications strategies that interpret scepticism of Iranian regional power as evidence of a desire for closer alignment with Western governments.

It also cautions against assuming that criticism of foreign influence derives from a particular religious or ethnic identity.

Iraqi public opinion between 2022 and 2024

The Arab Barometer results allow a more precise examination of changes over time.

Favourability toward Iran increased from 24% in 2022 to 34% in 2024, a rise of ten percentage points, while support for stronger economic ties reached 42%, up eleven percentage points from the earlier survey.

These movements demonstrate that security concerns and improving attitudes toward commercial engagement can coexist.

They also show why changes in political sentiment should not automatically be attributed to foreign influence campaigns. The relevant period included major regional and domestic developments, and the surveys do not identify British media exposure as a causal variable.

Table 8.2 — Selected changes in Iraqi attitudes, 2022–2024

Indicator	2022	2024	Change
Favourable view of Iran	24%	34%	+10 percentage points
Support for stronger economic relations with Iran	31%	42%	+11 percentage points
Trust in Iraqi government	26%	34%	+8 percentage points
Trust in civil-society organisations	41%	34%	−7 percentage points
Trust in parliament	19%	21%	+2 percentage points

Values and changes from Arab Barometer Wave VII and Wave VIII, as reported in the 2024 Iraq release; the table preserves distinct substantive measures rather than treating them as interchangeable indicators of political alignment.

Source: Iraq Public Opinion Report 2024 — Arab Barometer — December 2024.

The Kurdistan Region and the importance of political differentiation

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq constitutes a particularly important case because it combines constitutionally recognised federal arrangements, distinct political institutions, extensive cross-border relationships and an information environment in which Kurdish-language communication has substantial relevance.

The region cannot be treated as politically homogeneous. Its principal parties have historically maintained different relationships with Baghdad and regional powers, while Kurdish political movements and communities outside Iraq operate under substantially different constitutional and geopolitical circumstances.

It would therefore be analytically incorrect to interpret support for Kurdish autonomy inside Iraq as evidence of support for territorial action against Iran, or to infer Iraqi Kurdish opinion from the position of armed organisations operating across international borders.

The distinction is crucial in assessing historical audience-analysis material that reportedly examined attitudes toward regional boundaries, Kurdish identity or neighbouring states.

The existence of such categories within research documents does not establish a governmental operation to mobilise Kurdish separatism, nor does it establish that any particular platform disseminated messages advocating territorial change.

Evidence supporting a more serious allegation would need to identify an actual operational objective, responsible institutions, approved content and the intended political or territorial result.

Regional variation in attitudes toward the United States

Arab Barometer’s 2024 findings identify a substantial difference in American favourability between respondents in the Kurdistan Region and those in areas governed by Iraq’s federal authorities.

US favourability reached 60% in the Kurdistan Region, compared with 23% in federally governed areas, a difference of 37 percentage points.

Nationally, American favourability was reported at approximately 28%.

This difference is strategically significant because the perceived legitimacy of a communications sponsor can vary sharply by location. A campaign openly identified with a Western government may therefore receive different initial responses in different Iraqi regions.

However, the finding does not establish how Iraqi Kurds perceive Britain specifically, nor does it prove support for British-sponsored media programmes. American favourability cannot be substituted for British favourability without appropriate evidence.

Source: Amid Persistent Challenges, Iraqis Express Cautious Optimism in Latest Survey — Arab Barometer — December 2024.

Table 8.3 — Federal Iraq and Kurdistan Region: selected attitude differences

Indicator	Federally governed areas	Kurdistan Region	Difference or analytical implication
Favourable view of United States	23%	60%	37-percentage-point regional difference
Support for Israeli–Palestinian two-state solution	63%	29%	34-percentage-point difference
Nationally reported two-state support	59%	59% national figure	National result must not be mistaken for a regional figure
Perceptions of selected actions by Hamas and Hezbollah	Differ by question	Higher tendency to classify certain actions as terrorism	Requires item-level interpretation rather than a unified regional position

Arab Barometer Wave VIII, fieldwork May–July 2024. The survey excludes Duhok governorate, which limits complete geographic representation of the Kurdistan Region. Regional comparisons are descriptive, not evidence of British campaign effectiveness.

The comparatively favourable perceptions of the United States in the Kurdistan Region may affect the reception of certain international security narratives, but such reception would also depend on the publisher, the issue discussed and the audience’s understanding of the sponsor.

The regional differences concerning Palestine provide a second illustration of why broad claims about Iraqi political consensus require careful qualification.

Kurdish media, identity and the politics of regional legitimacy

Kurdish-language publishing serves a legitimate function in ensuring access to information in one of Iraq’s official languages. Its existence should not be interpreted as inherently political or separatist.

Nevertheless, the institutional context of Kurdish media includes distinct regional authorities, political competition and cross-border information flows involving Kurdish-speaking populations in neighbouring countries.

External communications programmes operating within this environment may encounter questions concerning constitutional autonomy, relations with Baghdad, security cooperation and regional identity.

A campaign promoting national cohesion could be understood as supporting cooperation within Iraq’s constitutional order. Alternatively, if designed without appropriate local participation, it could be interpreted as diminishing Kurdish autonomy or suppressing legitimate political disagreement.

The meaning of the campaign would depend on the actual narrative and the institutions exercising control over its production.

For this reason, multilingual campaigns should be evaluated not only for the quality of translation but also for substantive equivalence, consistency of factual claims and the absence of undisclosed political differentiation.

The significance of religious and tribal intermediaries

Religious and tribal figures remain influential in parts of Iraq’s social and political environment, although their authority varies across communities and circumstances.

Arab Barometer’s 2024 results reported trust in religious leaders at 48% and tribal leaders at 39%, compared with 34% for government and 21% for parliament.

These figures establish the contemporary relevance of non-governmental social authority. They do not establish that particular religious or tribal leaders participated in foreign-sponsored communications or that their followers would accept their political recommendations.

Historical programme material describing engagement with clerics and community intermediaries raises a distinct accountability issue: the difference between supporting an individual’s ability to communicate publicly and directing that individual to advance an undisclosed foreign governmental objective.

Speechwriting support, communications training and event organisation can be legitimate forms of technical assistance. Where the substance of a public intervention is externally prescribed or financed to advance a concealed political purpose, however, the institutional character changes.

The relevant evidence would include the terms of the engagement, whether the participant retained substantive control and what the audience was told about external support.

Iran-related narratives and the risk of simplifying political allegiance

Iran’s influence in Iraq involves diplomatic, economic, religious, security and political relationships, none of which can be represented accurately through a single measure of public favourability.

The existence of Iranian-backed armed and political networks is one dimension of this relationship, but it should not be conflated with the positions of all Iraqi Shia parties, religious authorities or citizens.

Likewise, opposition to Iranian governmental influence is not confined to Sunni or Kurdish communities.

The Iraqi protest movement that emerged prominently in October 2019 illustrated the importance of nationalist and anti-corruption grievances, including criticism of external interference, within predominantly Shia areas.

Such developments challenge simplistic foreign influence models that treat religious identity as a reliable substitute for political preference.

The relevant analytical question is therefore whether a foreign communications programme responds to genuinely documented public concerns or selectively amplifies particular grievances to serve the sponsor’s geopolitical objectives.

Without authenticated content and commissioning records, it is not possible to determine that the latter occurred through Yalla in relation to Iran.

Table 8.4 — Iran-related narrative categories and risks of misinterpretation

Narrative subject	Legitimate area of public debate	Potential analytical distortion	Required supporting evidence
Iranian political influence	Sovereignty and governmental independence	Equating criticism of Iran with support for Western policy	Representative surveys and specific content
Iraqi–Iranian economic relations	Trade, investment and cross-border dependence	Assuming security concern implies opposition to commerce	Separate economic and political attitude measures
Shia religious institutions	Religious authority and transnational relationships	Treating religious affiliation as governmental allegiance	Institution-specific evidence
Armed groups and security	State authority and armed-force accountability	Treating all community organisations as armed proxies	Reliable organisation-level evidence
Kurdish cross-border politics	Autonomy, identity and regional security	Conflating Iraqi federal autonomy with territorial separatism	Explicit political and organisational records
Iraqi national identity	Shared citizenship and constitutional order	Presenting one communal interpretation as national consensus	Broad and regionally representative evidence
Relations with Western states	Security cooperation and diplomatic policy	Assuming Iranian scepticism produces pro-Western preferences	Direct measures of attitudes toward each state

The table identifies analytical failure modes rather than concluding that a British programme employed each of these techniques.

The Palestinian question and the limits of geopolitical message transfer

Attitudes toward Palestine are highly relevant to Iraqi perceptions of Western foreign policy, but they should not be treated as simple extensions of views concerning Iran.

The 2024 Arab Barometer survey reported that 82% of Iraqi respondents considered the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories a critical national-security threat.

The same research identified differences between the Kurdistan Region and federally governed areas concerning a two-state settlement and the classification of specific acts by regional armed organisations.

These results show that Iraq’s geopolitical information environment contains overlapping and sometimes divergent preferences.

A communication programme that assumes public concern about Iranian influence necessarily implies support for Israeli or American regional positions would therefore be analytically unsound.

Similarly, the fact that an Iraqi audience views particular actions by armed groups differently does not establish its position on broader questions of Palestinian self-determination or regional security.

This complexity is especially consequential when assessing allegations that foreign-supported religious or media networks sought to shape the framing of Palestine-related issues.

Such claims require examination of actual published content, commissioning instructions and audience reception, rather than inference from the sponsor’s geopolitical preferences.

From community cohesion to political boundary management

Social cohesion is frequently presented as a stabilisation objective because trust and cooperation across communities can reduce vulnerability to renewed violence.

However, programmes promoting national unity may implicitly engage with contested questions concerning the distribution of authority, federal arrangements, historical grievances and the meaning of Iraqi citizenship.

A programme that celebrates Iraq’s cultural diversity can support recognition across communities without prescribing a particular constitutional model.

A programme that deliberately associates one political arrangement with social harmony while marginalising alternative constitutional preferences would be more directly political.

The distinction is particularly important in federal states, where constitutional debate concerning regional powers, resource distribution and institutional authority is legitimate democratic activity.

Consequently, evaluation of a foreign-sponsored cohesion campaign should establish whether its approved objectives concern peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding or the advancement of a preferred political settlement.

The former may align broadly with stabilisation. The latter requires a more explicit examination of foreign governmental interests and host-state authorisation.

The possible consequences of poorly governed narrative intervention

The effects of foreign-supported communications depend not only on their direct influence but also on how their existence is interpreted by competing domestic actors.

If a media outlet is revealed to have concealed material foreign sponsorship, its critics may use that discovery to challenge the credibility of its entire publication history, including independent work unrelated to the funded programme.

Political organisations may also seek to extend allegations against one contractor or publisher to broader categories of journalists, civil-society organisations or linguistic communities.

The resulting polarisation can create secondary consequences substantially beyond the original campaign.

Conversely, credible disclosure and enforceable editorial safeguards may reduce opportunities for political actors to weaponise allegations of foreign influence against legitimate journalism.

Table 8.5 — Strategic risk pathways in a divided information environment

Risk pathway	Causal mechanism	Possible consequence	Evidence that would establish emergence
Loss of media credibility	Undisclosed sponsorship becomes public	Reduced trust in a publisher	Audience research before and after disclosure
Collective suspicion	Allegations generalised to unrelated outlets	Pressure on independent journalism	Regulatory measures and documented public reactions
Communal misclassification	Programme assumes uniform sectarian preferences	Misaligned messages or resentment	Comparative audience studies
Political instrumentalisation	Domestic actors exploit foreign-financing allegations	Delegitimisation of opponents	Documented political campaigns and statements
Distortion of constitutional debate	Foreign sponsor favours a particular political settlement	Reduced perceived autonomy of debate	Authenticated editorial directives
Cross-border escalation	Communications connected to contested regional identities	Diplomatic or security tensions	State responses and verified operational links
Contractor accountability failure	Responsibilities fragmented among institutions	Difficulty identifying decision-makers	Incomplete contracting and approval records
Reputational spillover	One disclosure damages confidence in similar programmes	Weaker legitimacy of future cooperation	Independent trust measurement

The pathways identify plausible institutional consequences without assigning unsupported numerical probabilities or asserting that each has occurred.

A differentiated approach to Iraqi political identity

A defensible assessment of communications addressed to Iraq requires the systematic rejection of assumptions that identity alone determines political preference.

Religious affiliation, regional residence, language, economic position and institutional trust should be treated as distinct variables whose relationships must be established empirically.

The 2024 Arab Barometer findings provide a particularly important constraint on geopolitical simplification. They show strong concern regarding Iranian regional influence alongside an increased willingness to strengthen economic relations with Iran, major regional differences concerning American favourability and pronounced variation in confidence across Iraqi institutions.

These findings support neither a narrative of comprehensive Western acceptance nor one of uniform Iranian political dominance.

They indicate a society whose citizens evaluate security, economic cooperation, national sovereignty and institutional performance through multiple overlapping considerations.

For an external government, this environment creates opportunities for legitimate assistance but also heightened responsibility to avoid reducing domestic complexity to convenient strategic categories.

Key judgments — Chapter 8

Iraqi public opinion cannot be reliably interpreted through fixed sectarian or geopolitical blocs. The evidence demonstrates substantial differences between the Kurdistan Region and federally governed areas, as well as simultaneous concern about Iranian regional influence and support for stronger economic ties with Iran.

Historical British audience-analysis material raises legitimate questions about whether communal and regional preferences were used to design political influence operations, but the present evidentiary record does not establish the implementation of every described objective through Yalla.

The strongest strategic conclusion is that identity-based communication can produce effects beyond its intended message when it operates within contested relationships of sovereignty, autonomy and regional security. Such programmes require substantive knowledge of internal political variation, explicit safeguards against stereotyping and credible accountability for editorial direction.

What would change the assessment: Authenticated campaign instructions linking particular political narratives to defined communities, complete publication archives, evidence of coordinated dissemination across external intermediaries or independent evaluation demonstrating identifiable political effects would materially alter the findings.

Open official record: Historical target-audience research instruments, regional sampling methodologies, campaign-specific editorial briefs, published Arabic and Kurdish content and records concerning the authorisation of politically sensitive communications.

Pillar II — Consolidated Legal and Strategic Assessment

The second pillar establishes that the assessment of foreign information operations cannot be reduced to a choice between accepting all strategic communications as legitimate counterterrorism activity and classifying every unattributed publication as unlawful psychological warfare.

The principal analytical issue is the relationship between political purpose, operational method, public transparency, legal authority and measurable effect.

Behavioural communication becomes institutionally significant when a foreign governmental sponsor seeks to influence attitudes through locally credible intermediaries whose apparent independence is important to audience reception. The relevant governance questions concern not only the accuracy of the messages, but also the selection of recipients, the nature of the requested behavioural change, the use of sensitive characteristics and the disclosure of sponsorship.

The international legal framework imposes additional requirements of precision. Attribution of contractor activity to a state and the existence of an internationally wrongful act are separate questions, while the customary prohibition of intervention requires a legally significant form of coercion in matters protected by sovereign decision-making. An undisclosed financial relationship may justify serious scrutiny without independently satisfying those thresholds.

Iraqi constitutional protections further require that accountability measures respect freedom of expression, journalistic independence and the ability of citizens to participate in legitimate political debate. Transparency is therefore most defensible when directed at material governmental sponsorship and editorial control, rather than imposed as an indiscriminate restriction on external funding or critical journalism.

Finally, the available Iraqi public-opinion evidence demonstrates that national identity, institutional confidence and regional geopolitical preferences are substantially more complex than simple sectarian or foreign-alignment classifications suggest. Programmes that ignore this complexity risk producing misleading assessments of their audiences and unintended consequences for the social relationships they claim to strengthen.

The resulting institutional judgment is that legitimate international security cooperation requires a demonstrable separation between supporting the capacity of Iraqis to make informed choices and secretly determining the narratives through which those choices are presented. The evidentiary threshold for establishing that the latter occurred in a specific programme remains dependent on authenticated contracting, editorial and operational records.

The material conclusions of Pillar II establish the foundation for the subsequent examination of post-coalition strategic consequences, European and British policy exposure, institutional reform options and the 2026–2031 outlook.

OPEN-SOURCE ANALYTICAL ASSESSMENT — 12 OCTOBER 2026

PILLAR III — STRATEGIC CONSEQUENCES AND THE POST-COALITION ORDER

British Information Power in Iraq: Post-Withdrawal Security Architecture, European Strategic Exposure, 2026–2031 Scenarios and Institutional Accountability

Chapter 9. Iraq After Coalition Withdrawal: British Strategic Continuity and Regional Competition

The changing nature of foreign influence following the conclusion of the coalition mission

Principal judgment. The conclusion of Operation Inherent Resolve’s coalition military mission in Iraq marks a redistribution of security responsibilities and foreign influence instruments rather than a comprehensive disengagement by the United Kingdom or its international partners. Iraq’s government has assumed primary responsibility for its domestic security under the new arrangements, while bilateral partnerships, remote advisory capacity, diplomatic cooperation and international counterterrorism communications remain available through different institutional channels. This transition substantially changes the accountability environment because activities previously understood within a multinational military campaign must increasingly be justified through their own governmental mandates, contractual arrangements and relationships with Iraqi sovereign institutions.

The withdrawal process also reveals that foreign involvement in Iraq cannot be analysed as a single military presence with a uniform termination date. Coalition operations, NATO institutional assistance, national bilateral relationships and European civilian security programmes have different legal foundations and administrative structures. Their respective transitions have proceeded according to separate decisions, with direct consequences for the authority under which international personnel, advisory services and communications activities operate.

On 30 September 2026, the British Ministry of Defence announced that the Global Coalition’s military mission in Iraq had concluded and that coalition personnel, including British forces, had departed under arrangements led by the Iraqi government. The ministry nevertheless confirmed the continuation of Operation SHADER, an enduring bilateral defence partnership and Britain’s role coordinating coalition communications designed to counter Islamic State propaganda.

The announcement specified prospective cooperation in counterterrorism, military education, capability development and defence-industrial collaboration. These commitments indicate a strategic movement away from the previous coalition military framework toward bilateral and functional partnerships, without demonstrating that every historical operational programme has been renewed or preserved.

Source: Conclusion of the Global Coalition’s Military Mission in Iraq — UK Ministry of Defence — September 2026.

A transition negotiated across several different political timelines

The September 2026 British announcement must be understood against the transition agreed between Iraq and the United States in September 2024, which envisaged concluding the coalition’s military mission in Iraq by the end of September 2025 while preserving arrangements connected to counterterrorism activities in Syria until September 2026, subject to the agreed conditions.

The subsequently announced British departure on 30 September 2026 illustrates why the original planning timeline and the actual public confirmation of the transition must be recorded separately. An announced deadline is not proof that every participating country’s withdrawal, logistical closure or bilateral transition was completed on that original date.

Equally, the departure of coalition personnel under the British announcement should not be interpreted as proving that all foreign advisory activity in Iraq ceased. NATO’s mission, European Union advisory arrangements and bilateral engagements operate through separate institutional authorities.

The distinction is particularly visible in NATO’s June 2026 reporting. In March 2026, NATO relocated all personnel from its Iraq mission to Allied Joint Force Command Naples in response to the regional security situation, while maintaining the mission’s advisory function from Europe. NATO described this as a continuation of institutional assistance under a changed operating posture rather than a termination of the mission.

Source: NATO Mission Iraq — North Atlantic Treaty Organization — Updated June 2026.

Table 9.1 — The post-coalition security architecture as of October 2026

Institutional arrangement	Transition or current position	Operational function	Strategic significance
Global Coalition military mission in Iraq	UK announced conclusion on 30 September 2026	Previous multinational military coordination against Islamic State	Military departure changes the basis of continuing foreign involvement
United Kingdom bilateral partnership	Further development confirmed in September 2026	Counterterrorism, training, military education and defence cooperation	Preserves direct British influence through Iraqi governmental relationships
Operation SHADER	Continuation reaffirmed by the UK	British contribution to the broader anti-Islamic State effort	National operation continues despite the Iraqi coalition mission’s conclusion
British-led coalition communications	Continued coordination explicitly announced	Counterterrorist information and resilience communications	Maintains an acknowledged non-kinetic British leadership function
NATO Mission Iraq	Personnel relocated to Naples in March 2026	Remote institutional advice and capacity development	Demonstrates that physical withdrawal and functional continuation can coexist
EUAM Iraq	Technical mandate extension through 31 October 2026	Civilian security-sector reform and institutional advice	Operates through an EU civilian mandate, separate from the coalition
German CD/CBI contribution	2026 mandate continued to 31 January 2027, with Erbil withdrawal reported on 1 October 2026	German counterterrorism and capacity-building contribution	Illustrates national arrangements with different timelines
Iraqi security institutions	Primary domestic responsibility	Territorial security, counterterrorism and public order	Iraqi ownership becomes central to the legitimacy of international assistance

Sources: UK Ministry of Defence, September 2026; NATO Mission Iraq, June 2026; Bundeswehr, Counter Daesh and Capacity Building Iraq, August 2026, updated operational account; EEAS, EUAM Iraq 2026 Call for Contributions.

The strategic significance of the January 2025 bilateral agreements

The strongest evidence of Britain’s intended long-term relationship with Iraq predates the formal conclusion of the coalition mission.

During Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani’s visit to London in January 2025, the two governments announced a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and a broader programme of strategic engagement. The British government reported a trade package worth up to £12.3 billion, supported by export agreements, and described cooperation spanning economic development, infrastructure, defence, education, migration and other strategic priorities.

The headline trade figure requires careful interpretation. It represents the value attributed to an announced package rather than verified expenditure, completed investment or immediate cash transfers. Its significance lies in demonstrating the economic ambition of the bilateral relationship, not in establishing that all associated projects had been delivered.

The leaders also endorsed a statement concerning their strategic bilateral defence relationship, establishing a basis for military education exchanges, advisory support for institutional reform and prospective defence-industrial partnerships.

This development matters for the analysis of information influence because it creates a more extensive diplomatic and commercial environment within which future strategic communications might operate. Governments that cooperate across defence, trade and institutional reform possess multiple legitimate channels for public engagement, but the existence of those channels does not authorise concealed intervention in domestic political debate.

Source: Joint Statement Between the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister of Iraq — UK Prime Minister’s Office — January 2025.

Table 9.2 — The British post-coalition relationship: announced domains and execution requirements

Cooperation domain	Documented policy direction	Necessary implementation mechanism	Principal strategic exposure
Defence and security	Long-term bilateral partnership	Agreements, approved activities and counterpart institutions	Mandate ambiguity and regional escalation
Military education	Exchanges and institutional assistance	Training programmes and access arrangements	Sustainability and Iraqi institutional ownership
Capability development	Support for Iraqi security capabilities	Technical plans, procurement and delivery	Supplier dependence and interoperability
Defence industry	Development of bilateral partnerships	Commercial agreements and export authorisations	Contracting integrity and political influence concerns
Trade and investment	Package announced at up to £12.3bn	Project finance, execution and delivery	Headline value may differ from realised investment
Migration cooperation	Expanded bilateral engagement	Administrative and operational arrangements	Rights, implementation and domestic political sensitivity
Public communications	Continued UK-led counter-Daesh coordination	Defined authorisation, funding and disclosure	Unclear boundaries between information assistance and political influence
Institutional reform	Cooperation through government channels	Advisory mandates and measurable deliverables	Dependence on domestic political consensus

The table distinguishes official intentions from implementation requirements; it does not convert announced trade, defence or advisory initiatives into completed transactions.

The strategic value of remotely sustained capabilities

The relocation of NATO Mission Iraq personnel to Naples in March 2026 provides an important practical example of how security assistance can continue without permanent in-country personnel.

NATO stated that the mission’s advisory function would continue from Allied Joint Force Command Naples, with the long-term objective of strengthening Iraqi security institutions so that they could conduct counterterrorism and stabilisation responsibilities under national authority.

Remote delivery changes the organisation of institutional cooperation. It can reduce exposure to local security threats, lower dependence on permanent facilities and preserve specialist expertise across geographical distances. It may also weaken direct familiarity with conditions inside Iraq, limit informal engagement with local institutions and increase reliance on reports prepared by intermediaries.

The remote operating model is relevant to strategic communications because digital production, editorial coordination and distribution can also be conducted across borders. However, NATO’s remote advisory activity should not be equated with British covert media operations, for which separate evidence would be required.

The broader strategic finding concerns functional continuity despite geographical withdrawal, a pattern now observable across more than one international institution.

Iraq’s security autonomy and the problem of institutional dependence

The transition raises an important question concerning how Iraqi authorities can maintain access to external capabilities without allowing those capabilities to determine domestic political priorities.

External security assistance may provide specialised training, technical knowledge, intelligence cooperation and institutional support. Such relationships can enhance national capacity when Iraqi organisations define their own requirements and retain effective control over implementation.

Dependence becomes more problematic where essential services cannot be sustained without continued foreign financing, external technical personnel or proprietary systems that domestic institutions cannot independently inspect or maintain.

The distinction applies particularly to information systems because communications infrastructure may involve sensitive audience data, externally managed analytics, confidential subcontracting arrangements and public-facing institutions whose independence is difficult to evaluate from formal ownership records.

An effective post-coalition framework should therefore assess sovereignty not only through the departure of foreign combat forces but through the control of contractual obligations, data, procurement, programme evaluation and communications authority.

Regional competition after the coalition transition

The changing international military footprint does not eliminate the strategic interests of regional powers operating around Iraq.

The United States remains an important bilateral security partner. Iran retains multiple forms of political, economic and security influence. Turkey’s security concerns intersect with developments in northern Iraq and the wider Kurdish question. Gulf Arab states have interests in regional connectivity, investment and security. European states seek stability, counterterrorism cooperation and access to legitimate economic opportunities.

Iraq’s strategic position consequently depends upon its ability to maintain differentiated partnerships without allowing external competition to dominate domestic political institutions.

The communications dimension is especially sensitive because regional powers may seek to interpret Iraqi developments through competing narratives of sovereignty, foreign occupation, resistance, economic cooperation or national security.

British programmes operating within this environment need to be assessed according to their actual objectives rather than automatically assimilated to the geopolitical interests of every other Western partner.

A British counterterrorism communication is not necessarily an American geopolitical operation, just as criticism of Iranian influence does not automatically constitute support for any alternative foreign power.

The five-year strategic baseline

For the period 2026–2031, the most defensible baseline is continued Iraqi responsibility for domestic security accompanied by selective international assistance delivered through bilateral, multilateral and remote mechanisms.

This baseline does not exclude renewed security deterioration, changes in Iraqi governmental policy or the restructuring of international partnerships. Its significance is that future relations will increasingly require explicit institutional legitimacy rather than reliance on the operational assumptions of the earlier coalition campaign.

The transition creates an opportunity to establish clear distinctions between authorised counterterrorism messaging, independent media support, governmental public diplomacy and any activities involving concealed sponsorship.

If these categories remain administratively blurred, the withdrawal could reduce the visibility of foreign engagement without improving transparency concerning the instruments that survive it.

Key judgments — Chapter 9

The end of the coalition’s military mission in Iraq did not create a complete strategic withdrawal by Britain or other international partners, as demonstrated by continuing bilateral defence commitments, NATO’s remote advisory posture and the existence of a distinct European civilian security mission. The relevant institutional question has shifted toward the authority, supervision and transparency of continuing cooperation under Iraqi leadership.

The January 2025 bilateral programme established a broad political and commercial foundation for British engagement beyond counterterrorism, while the September 2026 announcement explicitly preserved Britain’s communications coordination role. These official developments support a judgment of strategic continuity without proving that any particular historical contractor-led media programme remains active.

What would change the assessment: A fully published post-withdrawal bilateral security agreement, termination of the UK-led communications coordination role, withdrawal of existing institutional mandates or evidence establishing new unauthorised foreign programmes would materially affect the expected balance between Iraqi sovereignty and external influence.

Open official record: Definitive post-withdrawal implementation agreements, detailed operating mandates for remote advisory arrangements and current contract-level financing of British strategic communications relevant to Iraq.

Chapter 10. Implications for the United Kingdom, European Partners and International Information Governance

The European problem: strategic cooperation and institutional credibility

Principal judgment. The Iraqi transition presents the United Kingdom and European governments with a problem extending beyond the future of counterterrorism assistance: how to preserve security cooperation, access to reliable local information and the credibility of democratic institutions while establishing defensible boundaries for state-sponsored influence. Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union do not possess identical mandates or exposure, and their respective positions must therefore be assessed individually rather than presented as a unified Western communications strategy.

The distinction is more than institutional formalism. A British government contractor operating under a national communications programme is not necessarily subject to the same programme supervision as a German military training contingent, a French bilateral aviation partnership or an EU civilian advisory mission. NATO provides a further structure in which national personnel contribute to a collective mission under agreed authority.

A finding concerning one British contractor cannot automatically be extended to the activities of these separate institutions. Nevertheless, allegations involving concealed political sponsorship may affect confidence in internationally financed media and stabilisation initiatives more broadly, particularly where beneficiaries or host-state institutions cannot readily distinguish the funding sources and editorial safeguards of individual programmes.

United Kingdom: preserving strategic access while reducing accountability exposure

Britain’s distinctive position results from the combination of its publicly acknowledged leadership in counter-Daesh communications and its announced expansion of bilateral defence and commercial cooperation with Iraq.

The government has therefore identified a continuing strategic interest in the country’s information environment while simultaneously promoting Iraqi sovereignty as the basis for post-coalition relations.

These two objectives are not inherently contradictory. Transparent counterterrorism communication developed with Iraqi authorities may support both national security and public knowledge. However, a continuation of historical arrangements involving deliberately concealed sponsorship could create political and reputational exposure if the programme’s objectives, authority and editorial controls cannot withstand scrutiny.

The British government’s strategic interest is therefore not simply to establish whether particular activities were authorised at the time they occurred. It is also to determine whether the arrangements were consistent with the expectations of the host government, whether contract-level controls were adequate and whether continuing programmes can be defended without reliance on misleading representations of local media independence.

The available public record supports the continuation of UK-led coalition communications, but does not disclose the complete current delivery structure. This is an important distinction for parliamentary oversight because a department may acknowledge responsibility for a policy while legitimately withholding operational details, yet still remain accountable for the lawful administration of public funds.

The National Audit Office’s overview of FCDO expenditure documented the replacement of the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund by the Integrated Security Fund on 1 April 2024, establishing an important administrative transition for tracing subsequent spending.

A historical contract administered under the CSSF cannot automatically be assumed to continue under the new funding arrangement; programme renewal, departmental responsibility and payment authority require separate verification.

Source: An Overview of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office for the New Parliament 2023–24 — National Audit Office — November 2024.

The fiscal distinction between military expenditure and communications financing

The National Audit Office’s Ministry of Defence overview reported £110 million in additional operational costs for the Iraq and Middle East conflict area during FY 2023–2024.

That figure should not be represented as a budget for strategic communications or as the total cost of Britain’s engagement with Iraq. The NAO explained that the Ministry’s operational-cost figures concern additional costs and exclude certain planned expenditure, such as ordinary salaries.

Moreover, the category combines Iraq with other Middle Eastern operational activities, preventing a defensible attribution of the full amount to Iraq alone.

The significance of this accounting distinction is that it prevents an apparently precise military expenditure figure from being used as evidence of funding for covert influence programmes.

Source: An Overview of the Ministry of Defence for the New Parliament 2023–24 — National Audit Office — October 2024.

Table 10.1 — British financial and strategic exposure: separate accounting categories

Indicator	Value or institutional position	Period	Correct analytical interpretation
UK–Iraq announced trade package	Up to £12.3bn	January 2025	Commercial package headline, not completed investment
Iraq and Middle East operational costs	£110m	FY 2023–2024	Additional MoD operational costs for a combined regional category
UK-led coalition communications	Continuation confirmed	September 2026	Institutional policy commitment, without a disclosed current contract total
Integrated Security Fund	Replaced CSSF from 1 April 2024	FY 2024–2025 onward	Financing architecture relevant to identifying current programme responsibility
Bilateral defence-industrial cooperation	Explicit governmental commitment	January 2025 and September 2026	Intended cooperation, with individual projects requiring separate verification
Historical Yalla-related programme amounts	£4.3m reported expenditure and £4m subsequent budget	FY 2019–2021	Contractor-material figures, not independently reconciled public expenditures

The figures should not be aggregated, because they concern different accounting units, programme definitions and fiscal periods.

France: an operational partnership centred on military interoperability

France’s engagement with Iraq has been substantially associated with Operation Chammal and cooperation involving Iraqi security forces.

An official French Ministry of the Armed Forces report dated 4 August 2026 described a joint mission involving two French Rafale B aircraft and two Iraqi T-50 aircraft as part of the Partner Nation Integration framework. The exercise, described as taking place in June 2026, focused on operational cooperation and close-air-support procedures.

This evidence establishes a concrete French bilateral capacity-development activity in the transition period, distinct from Britain’s publicly acknowledged coalition communications leadership.

France’s principal institutional concern in the context of the present assessment is therefore not a demonstrated involvement in Yalla-related programmes. It is the credibility of international security partnerships and the potential consequences for French cooperation should undisclosed external media sponsorship become a broader source of Iraqi distrust.

Paris has an interest in ensuring that bilateral military activities retain Iraqi governmental consent, that public explanations accurately describe their scope and that multinational political controversies do not automatically undermine separately authorised French programmes.

Source: Mission Conjointe Entre les Rafale Français et les Pilotes de Chasse Irakiens — Ministère des Armées — August 2026.

Germany: parliamentary mandate, military transition and policy oversight

Germany’s position differs because overseas Bundeswehr operations involve a distinct parliamentary mandate structure, creating a formal relationship between operational authority and Bundestag approval.

The Bundeswehr’s 2026 reporting describes the Counter Daesh and Capacity Building Iraq mission as involving potential deployment of up to 500 German military personnel under the relevant mandate. The mandate extension adopted in January 2026 authorised continuation until 31 January 2027.

German reporting also records the withdrawal of German units from the Erbil location on 1 October 2026, demonstrating that the authorised period for a multinational contribution may extend beyond the departure of a particular deployed contingent.

The distinction is significant for accountability because parliamentary authorisation establishes the permissible scope of a national military mission but does not itself authorise unrelated covert political communication.

Germany’s institutional exposure is therefore concentrated in maintaining the integrity of authorised security assistance, distinguishing national military activities from coalition-wide communications and ensuring that any separately financed information programme has its own lawful basis.

Source: Jordanien und Irak — Counter Daesh / Capacity Building Iraq — Bundeswehr — 2026.

Italy: training responsibilities, Kurdistan and the importance of local ownership

Italy’s engagement with Iraq has included Operation Prima Parthica, which provides a concrete example of specialised security-capacity assistance directed toward Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

On 22 January 2026, the Italian Ministry of Defence reported that training teams had completed a first annual cycle involving 74 Peshmerga personnel across four specialist courses. The ministry described activities concerning tactical planning, close-quarter combat, sniper training and counter-improvised explosive devices, with an Italian contingent of approximately 300 personnel at that reporting date.

These figures concern an identifiable training activity and a contemporary reported contingent, not the annual cost of the mission or the total number of personnel trained since its inception.

The Italian position is materially influenced by the requirement to cooperate with Kurdish regional forces while respecting Iraq’s constitutional and governmental arrangements. Its capacity-building model depends upon the legitimacy of partner institutions and the acceptance of foreign technical assistance as a contribution to Iraqi security rather than external political direction.

Italy also has a distinct interest in NATO’s revised posture because the relocated NATO Mission Iraq operates from Allied Joint Force Command Naples. This gives the Italian territory an important logistical and command-support relevance without establishing Italian control over the mission’s strategic decisions or any British communications programme.

Sources: Operazione Prima Parthica: Concluso il Primo Ciclo Addestrativo del 2026 — Ministero della Difesa — January 2026; NATO Mission Iraq — NATO — June 2026.

Table 10.2 — Distinct national positions and institutional risks

Actor	Verified 2026 engagement	National authority or framework	Primary strategic interest	Information-governance implication
United Kingdom	Bilateral defence partnership and continued coalition communications leadership	UK governmental policy, departmental and contractual authority	Preserve counterterrorism cooperation and bilateral influence	Direct responsibility to establish transparency and control in UK-financed programmes
France	Operation Chammal and bilateral air-force cooperation	French national military authorities	Security cooperation and operational interoperability	Protect the credibility of separately authorised military cooperation
Germany	CD/CBI mandate through January 2027; Erbil withdrawal in October 2026	German parliamentary mandate and military command	Counterterrorism and institutional capacity development	Maintain clear boundaries between mandated assistance and unrelated influence activity
Italy	Prima Parthica training and participation in allied arrangements	Italian defence and mission-authorisation framework	Training, regional stability and Iraqi/Kurdish cooperation	Safeguard local ownership and distinguish national responsibilities
European Union	EUAM Iraq civilian security-sector reform	EU Common Security and Defence Policy	Institutional governance, security-sector reform and rule of law	Ensure funded activities respect media independence and national authority
NATO	Remote advisory activity from Naples	North Atlantic Council and NATO command	Sustainable and accountable Iraqi security institutions	Protect advisory independence and host-state consent

The table identifies institutional differences rather than implying that the governments possess equivalent responsibilities for historical British media contracting.

The European Union: civilian security reform and the authority of the EUAM mandate

The European Union operates through a separate civilian security-sector reform framework under EUAM Iraq.

The mission was established under Council Decision (CFSP) 2017/1869, following a request by Iraq, to provide strategic advice concerning the civilian aspects of security-sector reform.

The legal development in 2026 is particularly important. Council Decision (CFSP) 2026/902 of 21 April 2026 technically extended the mission’s mandate until 31 October 2026, as identified in official European External Action Service recruitment documents.

This was a temporary extension, not evidence of an indefinite mandate. Council records from early October 2026 show further decisions concerning EUAM Iraq under consideration, but the existence of a draft or institutional discussion must not be equated with definitive adoption.

Source: EUAM Iraq, 2-2026 Call for Contributions — European External Action Service — May 2026.

The EU mission’s policy importance extends beyond its immediate advisory tasks. Security-sector reform requires attention to institutional accountability, public confidence, administrative integrity, the rule of law and the conduct of agencies holding coercive powers.

An Iraqi controversy over foreign-sponsored influence would therefore intersect with EUAM’s broader governance environment, even without evidence linking the mission to the alleged communications activity.

The EU’s responsibility is to maintain clearly identifiable institutional boundaries between civilian security assistance, electoral observation, media-development support and strategic political communication.

European political advertising regulation as a governance benchmark

A further European development provides a concrete legal model for sponsorship transparency, although its jurisdictional scope must not be overstated.

Regulation (EU) 2024/900, applicable principally from 10 October 2025, establishes transparency and targeting requirements for political advertising within its defined scope.

Article 11 requires political advertisements to carry information identifying their character and sponsor, while Article 12 establishes additional transparency-notice requirements. Article 18 places restrictions on the use of personal data for online political advertising, including requirements concerning explicit consent and limitations relating to sensitive information.

The regulation is relevant to the Iraqi case as a comparative governance instrument, not as a legal provision automatically regulating all publications in Iraq. Its territorial and material scope depends upon the circumstances in which political advertising is provided or disseminated, including applicable connections to the European Union.

It also distinguishes political advertising services from ordinary editorial content, thereby avoiding the assumption that every political opinion or independent journalistic publication is advertising.

Source: Regulation (EU) 2024/900 on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising — European Parliament and Council — March 2024.

Table 10.3 — European political advertising safeguards and their relevance to overseas governance

Regulatory feature	EU framework	Potential relevance to external programmes	Jurisdictional limitation
Identification of sponsorship	Article 11	Enables audiences to identify commissioned political messages	Applies only within the Regulation’s defined scope
Transparency notices	Article 12	Provides information about sponsors and campaign arrangements	Not a universal obligation for all overseas journalism
Political advertising records	Articles 9–12 and associated duties	Facilitates retrospective accountability	Depends on covered actors and services
Targeting safeguards	Articles 18–19	Restricts personal-data-based political advertising practices	Does not automatically govern all foreign government communications
Special-category personal data	Article 18 and GDPR-related framework	Limits sensitive political profiling	Requires applicable jurisdiction and activity
Editorial-content distinction	Article 3 and related provisions	Protects genuinely independent journalism from automatic advertising classification	Sponsored editorial arrangements require factual analysis
Third-country sponsorship restrictions	Article 5	Addresses specified electoral-interference risks	Defined election-related conditions, not general overseas media financing

The regulation demonstrates that sponsorship transparency can be framed as a rights-protective measure rather than a prohibition on political communication. Its detailed structure also illustrates the importance of defining precisely which communications and organisations are subject to disclosure obligations.

Divergence between EU law and British post-Brexit authority

The United Kingdom is not automatically bound by EU political advertising regulation merely because a British government department or company finances communications abroad.

A British contractor may nonetheless face EU rules where its activities fall within their jurisdictional and substantive scope, particularly if political advertising services are provided or disseminated in relevant European contexts.

The distinction reinforces the need for national and cross-border compliance assessments. A communications campaign involving a British commissioner, an Iraqi production company, European technical suppliers and international digital platforms can engage different contractual, privacy and advertising regimes, but not every actor will necessarily be subject to all of them.

The governing question is the legal connection between the specific activity and the relevant jurisdiction, not simply the nationality of the commissioning institution.

The international information-governance problem

The more general institutional challenge is the absence of a single international framework that clearly regulates all forms of foreign-government-sponsored political persuasion through domestic media.

International human-rights law protects expression and privacy. The customary non-intervention principle addresses certain forms of interference with sovereign political choices. Procurement rules govern the use of public funds. Domestic media regulations address ownership, advertising and editorial standards. Data-protection law governs relevant information-processing practices.

These bodies of law overlap but do not necessarily provide an exhaustive answer to every concealed-sponsorship arrangement.

Consequently, a communications programme can occupy an area of substantial ethical and political concern without clearly satisfying the conditions for a particular international wrongful act.

This gap does not justify inventing a universal legal prohibition. It supports the development of clearer contractual and disclosure standards capable of addressing problematic practices before they produce a major sovereignty dispute.

Key judgments — Chapter 10

The United Kingdom has the most direct obligation to account for its acknowledged communications leadership and any historical contractor activities undertaken under British authority, while France, Germany and Italy require separate analysis grounded in their respective military and institutional mandates.

The European Union offers a civilian reform framework and a detailed comparative model for political advertising transparency, but neither EUAM Iraq nor the EU political advertising regulation should be portrayed as having automatic authority over all British-sponsored media activity in Iraq.

The principal European strategic interest is maintaining the credibility of international assistance by ensuring that security cooperation, independent journalism and political advertising remain institutionally distinguishable.

What would change the assessment: A new European mandate, an authoritative British parliamentary or audit finding, or confirmed cross-border political advertising activity falling within EU jurisdiction would materially alter the allocation of institutional responsibilities.

Open official record: Final EUAM Iraq mandate decisions after October 2026, current British communications contract disclosures, national mission-authorisation documents and any relevant European regulatory decisions concerning third-country political advertising.

Chapter 11. Alternative Strategic Pathways, Exposure Risks and the 2026–2031 Outlook

Strategic forecasting under incomplete evidence

Principal judgment. The principal uncertainty for the period 2026–2031 concerns the political and institutional form of foreign-supported communications in Iraq, rather than the simple question of whether international actors will continue seeking to influence public perceptions. The confirmed continuation of British counterterrorism communications, the expansion of bilateral security relationships and the changing presence of NATO and European institutions establish a plausible basis for sustained international engagement, but available public records do not establish the future financing, editorial structure or covert character of any particular media programme.

A credible forecast must distinguish three different developments: the persistence of an official government communications mandate, the possible continuation or restructuring of commercial implementation networks, and the willingness of Iraqi authorities to impose stronger requirements concerning foreign sponsorship.

These developments may move in different directions. Public British communications could continue while older private contracts terminate. A new Iraqi disclosure framework could improve transparency without reducing legitimate international assistance. Conversely, a deterioration in regional security could increase demand for rapid counterterrorism communication while reducing the willingness of institutions to publish sensitive operational details.

For these reasons, the outlook is structured around conditional pathways rather than numerical predictions. Assigning exact probabilities would require documented base rates or a reproducible forecasting model that the present evidence does not provide.

The initial conditions governing the five-year horizon

The October 2026 baseline contains several identifiable constraints on the future operating environment.

The coalition military transition has been publicly announced as completed by Britain, while the United Kingdom has retained an explicit counter-Daesh communications function. NATO’s advisory mission has demonstrated that institutional assistance can continue remotely. Germany’s mission arrangements show that national mandates and physical deployments do not necessarily share a termination date. The European Union’s civilian advisory mission has been maintained through a temporary legal extension, with further mandate decisions under consideration.

At the same time, no authenticated public contract establishes the present operational relationship between the UK government, M&C Saatchi and Yalla. The absence of this record creates a major analytical limitation because the continuation of a government policy cannot be equated with the continuation of its historical delivery network.

The most consequential unknown variables therefore concern the structure of current procurement, the scope of Iraqi governmental consent, the degree of contractor transparency, the stability of the regional security environment and the capacity of domestic media institutions to maintain independence.

Table 11.1 — The 2026 strategic baseline and forecast variables

Strategic variable	Established baseline	Unresolved issue	Five-year significance
Coalition military posture	UK announced mission conclusion in September 2026	Subsequent bilateral implementation detail	Determines the institutional basis for foreign security presence
British communications	Leadership of counter-Daesh coordination reaffirmed	Current contractors and financing	Determines accountability for continuing information activity
Iraqi governmental authority	Primary national security responsibility reaffirmed	Detailed oversight of foreign-sponsored media activity	Determines effective national control
NATO assistance	Remote advisory posture from Naples	Future return or restructuring	Influences training and institutional cooperation
EU civilian engagement	Mandate technically extended through October 2026	Final subsequent mandate and resourcing	Influences civilian security reform
Commercial contracting	Historical contractor involvement described	Current awards, beneficiaries and governance	Determines possible continuity or termination
Regional security	Continuing regional competition and counterterrorism concerns	Future escalation and operational restrictions	Influences the demand for foreign assistance
Information transparency	Multiple potential legal and contractual mechanisms	Existence of enforceable programme-specific safeguards	Determines public confidence and reputational exposure

The baseline is drawn from the UK Ministry of Defence’s September 2026 announcement, NATO’s June 2026 mission account and the EEAS’s 2026 EUAM Iraq documentation.

Pathway A — Transparent, Iraqi-led security communications

Under the first pathway, international communications cooperation continues through clearly authorised programmes in which the identity of sponsoring institutions, the responsibilities of contractors and the editorial independence of local media are governed by explicit requirements.

The most important condition for this pathway is that Iraqi authorities and their international partners agree on the difference between official counterterrorism campaigns and support for independent journalism. Where a programme is intended to promote public awareness or change attitudes on behalf of a foreign government, the sponsorship arrangements would be disclosed at an appropriate level. Where financing supports journalism, contractual protections would prevent governmental intervention in editorial decisions.

Such a structure could preserve the practical advantages of international communications expertise while reducing the credibility risks associated with concealed sponsorship.

Its principal implementation burden would involve redesigning contracts, auditing existing arrangements and establishing mechanisms for dispute resolution between sponsors and implementing organisations.

The major countervailing risk is overregulation. Excessively broad disclosure requirements or politically controlled certification systems could deter legitimate media cooperation and create opportunities for government interference in independent reporting.

This pathway would become more credible if Britain published substantive programme-governance standards, Iraq introduced proportionate sponsorship rules and subsequent public contracts demonstrated enforceable editorial safeguards.

Pathway B — Institutional continuity with limited public transparency

Under the second pathway, British and other international strategic communications continue within established diplomatic and security relationships, but detailed information concerning contractors, funding beneficiaries and editorial direction remains restricted.

This pathway requires fewer immediate administrative changes because governments could continue relying upon confidentiality provisions and existing commercial arrangements.

It may also preserve flexibility for counterterrorism communications where disclosure of particular operational details could undermine legitimate security objectives.

However, its long-term sustainability would depend upon whether institutions can demonstrate sufficient accountability to parliamentary, audit and host-government authorities without publicising sensitive operational details.

A lack of public detail does not prove misconduct, but it can increase the difficulty of resolving allegations concerning independence, financing and political intent. Where records remain unavailable, competing interpretations may persist irrespective of whether the underlying activity was lawful.

The pathway’s principal risk is cumulative reputational exposure: successive disclosures, contractor disputes or parliamentary questions could erode confidence in programmes whose official justification remains defensible.

Pathway C — Iraqi regulatory consolidation and stronger restrictions on foreign-sponsored political activity

The third pathway envisages Iraq adopting more assertive measures to supervise foreign-sponsored political communications, potentially including registration requirements, disclosure of state-linked financing, controls on particular forms of paid political targeting and expanded audit powers.

The legitimacy of such measures would depend on their compatibility with constitutional rights and their application without discrimination according to political viewpoint.

If appropriately designed, a more demanding framework could reduce uncertainty concerning the authority under which foreign programmes operate and improve the public’s ability to distinguish independent journalism from state-sponsored campaigns.

If poorly designed, the same framework could become a mechanism for restricting legitimate criticism, foreign-funded civic activity and investigative journalism.

The decisive institutional variable would therefore be the independence of the supervisory authority and the availability of effective judicial review.

This pathway would become more credible if Iraqi institutions introduced legislation or regulations specifically addressing material governmental sponsorship while retaining exemptions and protections for independent journalism and confidential sources.

Pathway D — Regional escalation and securitisation of the information environment

The fourth pathway involves deteriorating regional security conditions, renewed militant activity or intensified competition among external powers, leading governments to place greater emphasis on defensive communications and information security.

In such an environment, strategic communications might become more tightly connected to military threat assessments, counterterrorism cooperation and crisis messaging.

The demand for rapid operational coordination could increase, while publication of detailed programme information might become more politically and operationally sensitive.

The corresponding risks would include heightened suspicion of foreign-supported media, more restrictive national information policies and the tendency to interpret independent journalism through the categories of national security and foreign interference.

This pathway is not presented as inevitable. It depends upon identifiable developments in regional security and governmental responses rather than an assumption that communications competition automatically produces military escalation.

The appropriate watch indicators include material changes in international security missions, formal emergency measures affecting media activity, disruptions to bilateral agreements and documented changes in the scope of counterterrorism communications.

Table 11.2 — Alternative strategic pathways, 2026–2031

Pathway	Conditions required	Consequences for Iraq	Consequences for Britain	Decisive indicators
Transparent cooperation	Agreed rules and enforceable programme disclosures	Greater institutional clarity and independent oversight	Lower reputational exposure, additional compliance burden	Published standards, audited contracts and Iraqi authorisations
Limited-transparency continuity	Existing government cooperation remains operational	Continued uncertainty concerning particular media relationships	Preserves flexibility but leaves allegations harder to resolve	Restricted contracts and limited public programme descriptions
Iraqi regulatory consolidation	New domestic supervisory measures	Greater formal control, with potential press-freedom trade-offs	Higher requirements for sponsors and suppliers	Legislation, regulator decisions and judicial review
Regional securitisation	Security deterioration increases demand for coordinated messaging	More security-oriented information policies	Greater operational emphasis and potential political exposure	Changes in threat posture, mission mandates and emergency regulations

These pathways are not mutually exclusive. A government may introduce stronger transparency rules during a regional security crisis, while a British programme could become more overt even as other activities remain confidential.

Five-year warning indicators and decision thresholds

A decision-useful monitoring framework must identify observable changes that would justify institutional action, rather than presenting every new media controversy as proof of a strategic transformation.

The strongest indicators are those linked to actual authority, expenditure, editorial control or restrictions on fundamental rights.

Table 11.3 — Indicators for institutional monitoring, 2026–2031

Indicator	Normal observation	Escalation threshold	Responsible monitoring authority
Government programme renewal	New contract or programme description	Materially changed mandate without clear approval	Relevant UK department and parliamentary oversight
Beneficiary financing	Disclosed or auditable recipient payments	Unreconciled material transfers or inconsistent beneficiary records	Government accounting and audit authorities
Editorial intervention	Defined commissioning and independence provisions	Evidence of undisclosed governmental approval or veto of political coverage	Contract supervisor and competent media regulator
Iraqi consent	Confirmed host-government authorisation where required	Activity exceeding authorised scope	Competent Iraqi governmental authority
Audience profiling	Documented lawful data collection	Evidence of unauthorised sensitive-data use	Applicable data-protection authority
Journalism protection	Normal independent reporting	Retaliation or coercive disclosure demands affecting journalists	Courts and rights-protection institutions
Regional security	Continuing bilateral cooperation	Material suspension, evacuation or mandate revision	Defence and foreign ministries
Public confidence	Repeated independently measured perceptions	Significant sustained deterioration linked to verified disclosure	Independent research institutions

These thresholds are procedural and evidence-based. They do not rely on arbitrary risk scores or unsupported numerical probabilities.

Forecasting implications for Britain and Iraq

For Britain, the principal strategic choice is whether continuing communications programmes should be organised under a demonstrably transparent sponsorship framework or whether confidentiality should remain the dominant approach to their public presentation.

The decision would affect contractor selection, information disclosure, bilateral negotiations and parliamentary accountability.

For Iraq, the corresponding challenge is to develop sufficient institutional capacity to assess foreign programmes independently without suppressing the legitimate diversity of its media environment.

The most favourable outcome would combine Iraqi ownership of domestic security priorities with accountable international assistance and protections for independent journalism.

The least favourable institutional outcome would arise if foreign financing and domestic regulatory responses both became opaque, leaving Iraqi audiences unable to distinguish external political direction from independent reporting while giving governmental institutions broad discretion to restrict speech.

Key judgments — Chapter 11

The post-2026 environment supports several plausible pathways rather than a single deterministic forecast. The available evidence demonstrates institutional continuity in British communications and international security assistance, but does not establish the present or future operation of any particular concealed media network.

The decisive variables are public accountability, Iraqi consent, contractual governance, media independence and regional security. Their evolution should be monitored through verifiable institutional decisions rather than inferred from the existence of a foreign policy interest alone.

What would change the assessment: Publication of current contractor arrangements, a major change in bilateral security policy, binding Iraqi media-transparency legislation or documented regional escalation would require reassessment of the pathways and their relative institutional plausibility.

Open official record: Programme renewals after October 2026, current government expenditure documentation, final EUAM Iraq mandate decisions, Iraqi supervisory measures and independently assessed changes in media conditions.

Chapter 12. Accountability Mechanisms, Policy Options and Final Strategic Assessment

Institutional accountability as the foundation of legitimate post-conflict influence

Principal judgment. The appropriate response to credible questions concerning foreign-sponsored media influence is neither indiscriminate condemnation of international communications programmes nor unconditional acceptance of governmental secrecy. It is the creation of a verifiable accountability framework capable of establishing who commissioned particular activities, which organisations received public money, what authority was exercised over publication and whether the resulting communications respected the rights and institutional autonomy of the receiving society.

Such a framework must reconcile several legitimate but potentially competing interests. Governments possess a substantial interest in countering terrorist propaganda, protecting operational personnel and cooperating with international partners. Iraqi citizens possess rights to freedom of expression, political participation and access to information. Journalists require protection against improper editorial interference and retaliation. Public institutions must account for the expenditure of state resources and the conduct of contractors acting under their authority.

These interests cannot be reconciled through an exclusively military or intelligence-oriented definition of effectiveness. A programme may achieve its immediate communication targets while damaging the legitimacy of the institutions through which it operates, particularly if its sponsorship arrangements are subsequently shown to have been materially misleading.

The central governance objective is therefore to preserve the legitimate functions of strategic communications while making political direction, contractual authority and financial responsibility sufficiently identifiable for effective oversight.

A differentiated system of responsibility

The first requirement is to distinguish the authority of the commissioning government from the responsibilities of contractors, media organisations, regulatory institutions and individual journalists.

For the United Kingdom, responsibility begins with the department or other public authority that defines and authorises the programme. That institution must be capable of demonstrating lawful expenditure, proper contractual management and compliance with applicable obligations.

A principal contractor must account for the services performed under its agreement, the controls exercised over subcontractors and the documentation retained concerning programme delivery.

An Iraqi media publisher must be evaluated according to its own legal and editorial responsibilities, without automatically attributing to it every undisclosed objective of a financier.

The Iraqi government must determine which activities require national authorisation or oversight while respecting constitutional guarantees of expression and media freedom.

International partners should ensure that their separate programmes do not become implicated in undocumented arrangements merely through administrative proximity or shared counterterrorism objectives.

Table 12.1 — Allocation of accountability responsibilities

Institutional actor	Primary responsibility	Documentary evidence	Appropriate oversight
UK commissioning department	Authorisation, purpose and public expenditure	Mandate, business case, contract and approvals	Ministerial and parliamentary accountability
UK programme manager	Contract implementation and compliance	Delivery reports, invoices and risk registers	Departmental audit and management
Principal contractor	Delivery and subcontractor supervision	Subcontracts, production instructions and payment records	Contract audit and applicable legal process
Iraqi implementing organisation	Domestic operational compliance	Registration, agreements and financial records	Competent Iraqi authorities
Media publisher	Editorial decisions and disclosure obligations	Editorial policies, publication archive and sponsorship notices	Independent media oversight and courts where applicable
Iraqi host institutions	Authorisation and protection of domestic rights	Agreements, approvals and decisions	Constitutional and administrative oversight
International partner organisations	Compliance within their distinct mandates	Mandate records and programme reviews	Relevant national or multilateral accountability systems
Independent evaluator	Assessment of programme outcomes	Research protocol, evidence and limitations	Independent methodological and institutional scrutiny

This allocation avoids the assumption that a commercial contract transfers sovereign accountability from the commissioning state to the supplier.

The first policy option: a bounded historical contract audit

The most immediately actionable institutional response would be a targeted audit of identifiable historical communications contracts and their associated expenditure.

The audit should seek to reconstruct the contractual chain from the public authority to the ultimate implementing beneficiary, distinguishing authorised budgets, contractual ceilings, actual payments and commercial margins.

It should also identify whether editorial responsibilities were explicitly assigned and whether relevant publications were subject to governmental approval.

A bounded audit offers several advantages. It focuses on verifiable records, avoids premature conclusions concerning unlawful conduct and can establish whether an additional legal or regulatory investigation is justified.

Its limitations concern access to confidential contracts, retention of historical records and the possibility that operational information is held by private suppliers rather than government departments.

Table 12.2 — Policy option A: historical contract and expenditure audit

Dimension	Proposed approach
Authority	Relevant UK departmental accounting and oversight structures
Initial scope	Identifiable historical strategic communications contracts relevant to Iraq
Evidence	Awards, invoices, payment schedules, subcontracting and editorial provisions
Expected effect	Reconciliation of financing and identification of responsible institutions
Implementation burden	Moderate to substantial, depending on record access
Time-to-effect	Initial findings possible after document preservation and contract inventory; complete reconciliation may require longer
Reversibility	High for procedural decisions; disclosure of sensitive records may be irreversible
Principal risk	Exposure of protected operational or personal information
Safeguard	Controlled evidence access, redaction standards and independent review
Decision threshold	Documentary discrepancies or material evidence of undisclosed editorial direction

The audit should not be structured to establish a predetermined conclusion. Its principal value lies in allowing allegations to be confirmed, qualified or rejected through records that can be independently examined.

The second policy option: a bilateral communications-governance framework

A second option would involve a formal arrangement between Britain and Iraq defining the permissible scope, authorisation and accountability of future publicly funded communications programmes.

The framework could distinguish official counterterrorism messaging, technical media assistance, cultural cooperation and government-sponsored political advertising.

The most important provision would concern the relationship between sponsorship and editorial control. Where the commissioning government directs the message, the activity should be identified as governmental communication at the level appropriate to the programme. Where support is intended to strengthen independent journalism, the agreement should protect editorial autonomy rather than merely asserting that it exists.

A bilateral framework could also establish procedures for handling disputes, protecting commercially sensitive information and safeguarding individual journalists.

The principal implementation challenge would be ensuring that such an arrangement does not become an instrument through which either government exercises excessive control over legitimate media activity.

The third policy option: programme-level sponsorship disclosure

A narrower and potentially more practicable measure would require publicly financed strategic communications contracts to establish clear rules for sponsorship disclosure.

The rules could differentiate between an institution’s general funding, payments for individual publications and direct governmental control over campaign content.

For example, a grant supporting newsroom training should not automatically require a foreign-government label on every article published by the recipient. A video specifically commissioned and approved to advance a foreign government campaign presents a materially different relationship that may warrant explicit identification of the sponsor.

The measure would therefore need to be calibrated to actual contractual control and the audience’s reasonable understanding of the publication.

The European political advertising framework offers an instructive comparative example because it distinguishes editorial expression from commissioned political advertising while providing detailed transparency mechanisms within its jurisdiction.

Source: Regulation (EU) 2024/900 on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising — European Parliament and Council — March 2024.

The fourth policy option: independent media safeguards

A more structural response would focus on reducing the susceptibility of local media organisations to concentrated external financing.

The objective would not be to prohibit international funding, which could weaken independent journalism and civic institutions. Instead, it would establish safeguards concerning donor concentration, editorial independence, financial transparency and the ability of media organisations to decline requests inconsistent with their professional responsibilities.

An effective framework would recognise that economic independence cannot be guaranteed simply by requiring a formal editorial charter.

Where one sponsor provides a dominant share of revenue, the loss of financing may threaten organisational survival even if the contract nominally protects editorial discretion.

Consequently, governance standards should be complemented by feasible strategies for financial diversification, transparent ownership and effective separation between donor reporting obligations and the publication of independent news.

This approach would be more sustainable than a system depending entirely on retrospective investigations after contested material has already circulated.

Table 12.3 — Comparative policy options and institutional trade-offs

Option	Expected benefit	Implementation difficulty	Principal downside	Reversibility
Historical contract audit	Establishes documentary responsibility	Access to old and sensitive records	Confidentiality disputes	High before publication of protected information
UK–Iraq governance arrangement	Clarifies host-state and sponsor authority	Negotiation and institutional coordination	Potential political control over media	Moderate
Sponsorship-disclosure requirements	Improves audience understanding	Defining covered political communications	Overbroad classification of journalism	High through regulatory amendment
Independent editorial safeguards	Protects journalistic autonomy	Enforcement under concentrated financing	Formal compliance without practical independence	Moderate
Cross-government expenditure reporting	Improves financial traceability	Fragmented departmental and supplier systems	Excessive aggregation or administrative burden	High
Independent programme evaluation	Tests substantive outcomes	Research design and data access	Misleading causal claims if poorly designed	High for future methodology
Judicially supervised disclosure disputes	Protects rights and due process	Court capacity and access to evidence	Lengthy proceedings	Lower once sensitive material is disclosed
International voluntary standards	Encourages comparable practices	Limited enforcement authority	Inconsistent national implementation	High

The preferred approach should be determined by institutional authority and evidentiary needs rather than an assumption that the most restrictive option is automatically the most effective.

Designing a verifiable programme-disclosure record

A credible accountability system requires more than a general statement identifying the source of financial support.

A programme-level record should establish the responsible governmental department, the legal identity of the principal contractor, the authorised purpose, the maximum contractual value, the period of performance and any material editorial-control provisions.

Where subcontracting is substantial, the record should permit authorised auditors to reconstruct the chain of financial and operational responsibility.

It should also distinguish programme-level disclosure from publication-level disclosure.

A single media organisation may publish independent journalism, ordinary commercial advertising, cultural material and externally commissioned political communications. Applying a single label to the entire organisation may therefore misrepresent the status of individual publications.

An effective record should allow the legal and editorial characteristics of the specific communication to be identified.

Table 12.4 — Minimum auditable programme record

Record field	Purpose	Public availability principle
Commissioning institution	Identifies governmental responsibility	Normally disclosable, subject to lawful exceptions
Contracting legal entity	Identifies supplier responsibility	Normally disclosable under applicable rules
Programme objectives	Establishes authorised policy purpose	Publish at a level consistent with legitimate security needs
Contract period	Defines historical scope	Normally disclosable
Contract value and payments	Reconciles financial obligations	Appropriate expenditure transparency
Subcontracting structure	Identifies downstream implementing relationships	Auditable even where some details require protection
Editorial-control provisions	Establishes authority over publication	Subject to meaningful independent examination
Publication-level sponsorship	Enables audience interpretation	Required where applicable under relevant rules
Personal-data practices	Establishes privacy and targeting compliance	Public explanation with protected technical details
Evaluation methodology	Supports performance assessment	Independent methodological scrutiny
Complaint and remedy process	Enables correction and accountability	Accessible to affected parties
Record-retention schedule	Preserves future auditability	Consistent with applicable law and legitimate confidentiality

This structure would provide a practical evidentiary foundation for future investigations without requiring governments to disclose every operational detail or confidential intelligence capability.

Managing the risk of retrospective reputational harm

Investigations into foreign-sponsored media operations can produce serious consequences for individuals whose involvement was limited to ordinary professional work.

A freelance journalist may have been commissioned to produce cultural content without knowledge of the programme’s ultimate political sponsor. A publisher may have accepted financing under an agreement that preserved substantial editorial autonomy. A local production company may have provided technical services without controlling the strategic objectives.

Public accountability must therefore distinguish the responsibility of governmental commissioners, contractual managers, editorial decision-makers and ordinary contributors.

The publication of contracts, allegations or names without sufficient context could expose individuals to professional damage, intimidation or physical threats while providing limited additional insight into governmental responsibility.

The appropriate response is evidence-led attribution of responsibility rather than collective suspicion.

This principle applies equally to public institutions. Allegations against one British government-supported programme should not automatically be treated as evidence that all British, NATO or European assistance was covertly directed.

Institutional implementation: a sequence of accountable decisions

A practical reform programme should begin with documentary preservation and the identification of competent authorities.

The initial stage would establish which institutions possess the relevant contracts and records, whether the material can be disclosed under applicable law and what safeguards are necessary for sensitive information.

The subsequent stage would reconcile financing with actual services and determine whether specific editorial interventions occurred.

Only after those findings would it be appropriate to consider legal proceedings, contract remedies, revised procurement requirements or changes to bilateral governance.

A final stage would establish forward-looking standards capable of preventing the recurrence of any confirmed deficiencies.

Table 12.5 — Proposed implementation sequence

Stage	Core activity	Responsible authority	Decision product
Evidence preservation	Identify and secure relevant historical records	Contracting authority and lawful custodians	Verified document inventory
Financial reconciliation	Trace allocations, obligations and payments	Departmental finance and audit functions	Audited financial chain
Editorial assessment	Determine commissioning, approval and disclosure arrangements	Competent independent reviewers	Publication-level governance findings
Host-state assessment	Examine authority and consent	Competent UK and Iraqi institutions	Determination of the authorised operational scope
Legal review	Assess attributable conduct and possible breaches	Competent legal authorities	Reasoned legal findings where warranted
Remediation	Correct contracts and governance defects	Programme owners and implementing entities	Revised obligations and remedies
Future safeguards	Introduce disclosure and independence provisions	Relevant legislative or regulatory authorities	Applicable standards
Periodic assessment	Review actual compliance and public outcomes	Independent oversight bodies	Evidence-based periodic reporting

The sequence is designed to prevent an inquiry from moving directly from disputed documentary allegations to legal conclusions without examining the intermediate contractual and operational evidence.

International implications: the governance of state-financed digital communication

The wider significance of the Iraqi case extends beyond the historical relationship between Britain and one country.

Digital communication makes it possible for a state to commission material intended for foreign audiences, distribute it through commercial and local intermediaries, evaluate audience response and coordinate content across different platforms without maintaining a visible institutional presence in the receiving territory.

The technical ease of cross-border distribution creates an asymmetry between operational capability and public accountability.

Governments may possess the financial and organisational capacity to commission sophisticated information programmes while the affected population lacks practical mechanisms to identify the sponsor or challenge misleading representations of independence.

The appropriate institutional response is not a universal prohibition on international strategic communication. Such a prohibition would conflict with legitimate diplomatic, educational, humanitarian and journalistic activity.

Rather, the objective should be an internationally intelligible distinction between transparent governmental persuasion, genuinely independent media assistance and concealed political direction.

A state seeking to promote democratic governance and institutional trust abroad has an additional strategic interest in observing that distinction, because the legitimacy of its own communications depends partly upon whether audiences can evaluate the speaker’s institutional interests.

Final strategic assessment — The durability of influence beyond military withdrawal

The end of the coalition military mission in Iraq has not eliminated the capacity of external states to shape the country’s strategic environment. Bilateral defence relationships, institutional advisory missions, economic agreements, commercial contractors and digital communications provide continuing channels through which foreign governments may pursue legitimate interests and influence political perceptions.

The British government’s own September 2026 announcement demonstrates this continuity by confirming the conclusion of the coalition military mission while maintaining a British leadership role in counter-Daesh communications. The January 2025 bilateral agreements further establish the breadth of Britain’s intended future relationship with Iraq.

These facts are sufficient to conclude that military withdrawal cannot be treated as equivalent to the termination of British information engagement.

They are not sufficient to conclude that a particular historical Yalla-related programme remains operational, that its present editorial decisions are directed by British authorities or that all alleged historical practices constituted internationally wrongful acts.

The distinction is central to the integrity of the assessment.

The historical material concerning contractor-supported Iraqi communications raises serious questions regarding financial provenance, editorial independence and the potential use of local media credibility to deliver externally commissioned behavioural messages. Those questions can be resolved only through evidence capable of establishing actual contractual obligations, payment recipients, editorial authority and the disclosures presented to audiences.

The consequence for Britain is a requirement to demonstrate that its communications capabilities remain subject to adequate public-law, financial and contractual accountability. The consequence for Iraq is a requirement to protect the autonomy of its information environment without granting domestic authorities excessive power over legitimate journalism and international civic cooperation.

For European governments and international organisations, the lesson concerns institutional differentiation. Military training, civilian security reform, public diplomacy, independent media assistance and unattributed political persuasion cannot be treated as interchangeable activities simply because they may contribute to broadly similar stabilisation objectives.

The strategic importance of the problem is likely to increase as security assistance becomes more dependent on remote technologies, cross-border contracting and digitally mediated institutional relationships. Under such conditions, a country’s ability to supervise the origin and purpose of foreign-sponsored communications becomes an increasingly important component of effective sovereignty.

The final judgment of this assessment is that the legitimacy of post-coalition influence will depend less on whether external governments continue communicating with Iraqi society than on whether the authority, financing and editorial purpose of those communications can be identified and subjected to credible scrutiny.

A communications programme that operates transparently, respects independent journalism and is undertaken within an appropriate legal and institutional framework can contribute to security and social resilience. A programme that deliberately obscures governmental direction while exploiting the apparent independence of local media creates risks to public trust, domestic political autonomy and the credibility of the state that finances it, even where the content disseminated does not contain demonstrably false information.

The decisive issue for the 2026–2031 period is therefore not the disappearance of external influence but the institutional terms under which it survives.

---

Copyright of debuglies.com – Even partial reproduction of the contents is not permitted without prior authorization Reproduction reserved