How a dubious X post from India on Iran war went mainstream? | Explained

The New York Times reported on Sunday (August 16, 2026) that a “dubious post” from India had spread around the world to key leaders in the U.S.–Iran conflict, potentially harming ceasefire talks between the two countries. The post in question said Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander-in-Chief Ahmad Vahidi had supposedly claimed that Iran was now intent on building a nuclear weapon.

Also read | War on Iran | The story of a shipwrecked hegemon 

The post from India was from a user that the Times did not name. The Hindu located the handle, whose display name is Baba Banaras. The handle was apparently the earliest to post the remarks falsely attributed to Mr. Vahidi. There may have been a prior post that the handle was copying, but there are no posts before this handle that make this claim.

The Hindu reached out to the person operating the handle, but did not hear back. The handle has a blue verified checkmark thanks to an X Premium subscription on the platform formerly known as Twitter. It has been flagged in the past by the fact-checking portal Alt News as constantly posting communal propaganda.

“There will be no talk of Enriched Urenium [sic] or nuclear weapons, as long as U.S. & Israel are owning nuclear weapons, we will keep working on it for national security,” the fabricated quotation said. This post barely had 10,000 views, but other handles on X picked up the quote until it reached Israeli media.

Since its acquisition by billionaire Elon Musk, X has taken a completely hands-off approach to misinformation, and does not consider it an account suspension worthy issue; the site does not even limit visibility of such handles. Many handles with titles like “war monitor” and “open source intelligence” frequently publish half-baked misinformation. X compensates some of these accounts with cash bonuses in dollars for content that performs well. The company has argued that since it has a so-called “Community Notes” feature for users to flag misinformation, it sees no reason to diminish such posts’ reach.

After the quote was picked up by a pro-establishment Israeli media outlet, it was picked up by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, following which Mr. Netanyahu himself mentioned it in a speech made during the reinterment of the remains of Theodor Herzl’s grandparents (Mr. Herzl is cited in Israel’s declaration of independence as the spiritual father of the Jewish State).

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Mike Waltz, also posted a quote of the misinformation on X, but subsequently deleted his post.

Many Indian users on X have targeted U.S. and global visitors’ interests, sometimes with misinformation, since the dollar payout is worth more in India due to foreign exchange rates. When X started revealing countries of individual users, it became clear that many handles that were purportedly U.S.-based political commentary accounts were actually based in India, Nigeria and other countries with relatively weaker currencies.