Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei urged police to make wider use of artificial intelligence, praising security forces for keeping order despite repeated US and Israeli attacks. His message renewed attention to AI in warfare after a US bombing of an elementary school in Minab killed more than 150 people, many of them schoolgirls.
Security forces and AI
In a message marking National Police Week, Khamenei said police needed stronger personnel, equipment and technology, including AI-assisted data analysis. He called a “comprehensive strengthening” of forces responsible for security important to carrying out their missions.
The message called for advances in human resources, hardware and software, along with “the purposeful use of artificial intelligence in data analysis”. Khamenei said these measures would improve the police force’s ability to do its work.
He accused the United States and Israel of deliberately targeting police commanders and personnel. Those attacks, he said, hadn't undermined the forces’ ability to carry out their missions.
Iran’s plans to integrate AI into its armed forces and security apparatus had been reported nearly three months before the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February, sparking a regional war. The call for greater investment now comes against a backdrop of military attacks and wider AI use by armed forces.
AI in military operations
Despite sanctions restricting Iran’s access to advanced AI chips, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said last year during military exercises that it was using AI in domestically developed drones. Those systems included missiles capable of autonomously locking on to moving targets.
Iran’s official strategy sets a target of ranking among the world’s top 10 AI powers by 2032. It also aims for AI to contribute 12 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. The push to integrate AI into defence systems accelerated after Iran’s first direct military confrontation with Israel in 2024.
In April, Brig Gen Kioumars Heydari, then commander of the army’s ground forces and now deputy chief of staff, called AI “one of our priorities to maximise our defensive power”.
The United States has also used AI in its war against Iran. In March, Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, said AI systems “allow us to analyse large volumes of data within seconds, enabling our leaders to make the right decisions faster than the enemy amid the noise”.
Cooper said advanced AI tools had cut processes that typically took hours, and sometimes days, down to seconds. He added: “However, the final decision is always made by a human: what to strike, what not to strike, and when to strike.”
Minab school bombing
The US bombing of an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, on the first day of the war killed more than 150 people, many of them schoolgirls. The strike raised questions about AI’s role in military operations.
A September report by Bloomberg said overreliance on AI tools, alongside outdated intelligence and imagery, contributed to the strike. The Pentagon hasn't made the full findings of its investigation into the attack public.