DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — When Ellie, a British-Iranian living in the United Kingdom, tried to call her mother in Tehran, a robotic female voice answered instead.
“Alo? Alo?” the voice said, then asked in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.
“I can’t heard you,” the voice continued, its English imperfect. “Who you want to speak with? I’m Alyssia. Do you remember me? I think I don’t know who are you.”
Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad — including in the U.K and U.S. — who said they have gotten strange, robotic voices when they attempted to call their loved ones in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country a week ago.
They told their stories to The Associated Press on the condition they remain anonymous or that only their first names or initials be used out of fear of endangering their families.
Five experts with whom the AP shared recordings said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, a chatbot or a pre-recorded message to which calls from abroad were diverted.
It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely.
Only the second most terrifying story I’ve read today
The most prevalent proxies are the houthis and Hezbollah, which Iran has been arming, financially supporting, and influencing for about two decades now so they can attack Israel without getting themselves into an all out war with Israel and the USA, which they know they would likely lose.
Argue all you want about whether or not Israel should have bombed Iran, but calling it unprovoked is extremely disingenuous.
By that logic, half the world has the right to bomb the USA for arming proxies all over the world, though.
Also, why are you jumping to defend the actions of a state currently committing genocide against Palestinians?
I live here and I wouldn’t hold it against them. Please stay out of DTLA though. With the bombs; totally get your last meal there if you’re headed to like Raytheon or something in OC, you won’t regret it
Oof you’re not gonna convince a protocols larper of that one.
I’m not defending Israel. I’m answering this guy’s question, like wHaT PrOxIeS??
You can straw man all you want, but not once have I defended Israel’s actions. Just because Israel is shit to gazans doesn’t mean that Iran is not also shit to Israel. Straw man.
If we want to have a legitimate conversation about morality then we start by agreeing on facts.
Trying to claim Iran did nothing wrong is not factual.
Iran does plenty wrong. Not to zionazis.
And not just because nothing is inexcusable when done rozionazi protocols LARPers
But because there’s an existential threat that always attacks first, multiple times,before Iran retaliates.
The Houthis and Hezbollah are the only people in the world with a spine to attempt some fight against the 21st century Nazis, Iran arming them is a moral thing. The Nazis weren’t defeated with nice words in the previous century, and they won’t be in this one either.
Hamas is also an Iranian proxy. They attacked Israel in a very big way.
Hamas is an Israeli product that attacked itself on purpose. They couldn’t have done it without help from Papa Yahoo.
Well since we’re just putting random words together, two can play at that game! Netanyahu is a Hamas product! Netanyahu wouldn’t be Prime Minister if it weren’t for Hamas! Switcharoo, I win!
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_support_for_Hamas
So you consider Israel doing any negotiation with Hamas to be support for Hamas?
So Israel should continue this war until every last member of Hamas is dead, otherwise they’d be “supporting Hamas”?
You don’t like that Israel made deals to send humanitarian aid into Gaza? So you want all humanitarian aid to be cut off from Gaza because that could be considered support for Hamas?
Hamas got into power because a plurality of Palestinians voted for them. Like all fascists, they didn’t hold elections after they got power, so we really don’t know how much support they have from the Palestian people living in Gaza. But there have been times when Israel (hostage deals) has to deal with them since they are the government. Some people characterize making any deal with Hamas to be “supporting Hamas” because they don’t want Israel making any deal with Hamas.
So you’ve provided me with some opinions from other people. But do you think Israel making a hostage deals with Hamas should be considered as Israel supporting Hamas?