How AI-driven Media Warfare Threatens Stability in Iraqi Kurdistan  

The political rift between the governing parties of Iraqi Kurdistan significantly intensified, with a prolonged government formation deadlock following the October 2024 parliamentary elections. This protracted political infighting has increasingly shaped aspects of Kurdish life, and the media is playing a significant role in amplifying the ongoing divide. In recent years, shadow media partisan networks have been alleged to have become the source of disinformation, deployed to target opponents, damage rivals, and exert mutual strategic pressures.  

Prior to the widespread availability of AI tools, running these shadow operations required massive funding and extensive logistics. If a political party sought to impose its political agenda in the public sphere, it had to heavily invest in a “cyber army,” requiring substantial financial resources and organized personnel to run coordinated online operations.  

Artificial intelligence has reduced economic barriers and lowered technical requirements, reducing the costs of influence operations and expanding access to sophisticated manipulation tools for political players seeking influence. This emerging situation has made the consequences of media warfare potentially more dangerous.  

With lower financial and technical barriers, partisan media networks have increasingly been exposed to allegations involving AI-generated or manipulated content, including deepfakes, during sensitive political standoffs and election campaigns, introducing highly unpredictable threats to Iraqi Kurdistan’s internal peace.   

This new paradigm of digital warfare was thrust into the spotlight during the October 2024 election campaign. In a highly polarized environment, an alleged leaked audio recording on social media was attributed directly to the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the second governing party of Iraqi Kurdistan. The audio was widely circulated by media networks perceived as close to their primary rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). However, technology specialists revealed that the recording was likely manipulated. The exposure of the manipulation caused a broad backfire against its publishing networks.  

This incident revealed how AI has the potential to be weaponized by political actors and perceived partisan media, raising concerns about political instability.  

The fallout from the 2024 deepfake precedent continues to ripple through Iraqi Kurdistan today. With no current prospect of KDP and PUK ending their political rifts, the ongoing government formation crisis has increasingly been shaped by AI-enabled information flows and information warfare dynamics.  

In Iraqi Kurdistan, AI-driven media warfare has emerged as a new dimension of intra-party conflicts, fundamentally altering how Iraqi Kurdish political parties approach strategic negotiations and compromises.  

The growing significance of media warfare was further illustrated by a recent initiative launched by Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) leader Salahadin Bahadin, the third political force in Iraqi Kurdistan, which secured 7 seats in the October 2024 elections.   

According to media reports, Salahadin Bahadin met with leaders of KDP and PUK separately on May 18. One of Bahadin’s initiatives was to convince the competing leaders to halt the media war, which was described as “harmful” to Iraqi Kurdistan, amid efforts to bring the competing parties to the negotiating table for the formation of a government amidst the ongoing political deadlock.  

Iraqi Cybersecurity experts warn that the increasing use of generative artificial intelligence techniques to produce fake audio recordings could become a dangerous tool for influencing public opinion and undermining confidence in the political process, and this example was amplified in the 2025 parliamentary elections in Iraq, during which the process witnessed the circulation of fabricated audio clips attributed to political elites discussing controversial issues.  

AI-driven media warfare is anticipated to be more prevalent in the future elections of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region due to persistent political disagreements, unresolved disputes, and limited political tolerance that continue to intensify party competition.  

In the current political turmoil, artificial intelligence has become a catalyst for the dissemination of political propaganda within the partisan media system, accelerating the production and circulation of content that can distort factual narratives and influence public perception. This contributes to a fragmented information environment in which political communication increasingly prioritizes persuasion over verification. As a result, public discourse becomes more contested and less anchored in shared facts, which may undermine democratic development and reinforce political division.       

Author’s Bio: 

Shad Sherko is an independent journalist and security analyst specializing in Middle Eastern defense policy, regional proxy dynamics, and cross-border insurgencies.