For even the largest militaries, it is an almost impossible task to identify, select and then precisely locate such a high volume of targets. But the U.S. military had some help. Claude, the “next generation AI assistant” built by Anthropic, was used in the planning of ‘Operation Epic Fury’. This, even though the Department of War recently labeled Anthropic a “supply chain risk”.

Anthropic is one of the world’s leading AI companies. Together with Palantir, another Big Tech company, it has been working since 2024 with the Pentagon to embed its systems in military decision-making – creating what is arguably the operating platform of present-day U.S. warfare and intelligence. Even though secretary of defense Pete Hegseth said the company “delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal” and that the government would “cease all use of Anthropic's technology,” the company is too integrated into modern U.S. warfare for it not to be essential to the U.S. attack on Iran. The question might be not whether companies like Anthropic can ringfence their tech but whether the Pentagon might just commandeer it. 

Craig Jones, an academic who studies automated kill chains at the University of Newcastle, has told reporters that “the AI machine is making recommendations for what to target, which is actually much quicker in some ways than the speed of thought.” Similar AI systems have been used by Israel to coordinate its bombing campaign in Gaza, which is among the most destructive in human history. 

Among the first hits in the United States and Israel’s aerial bombardment of Iran was the Shajarah Tayyebeh primary school for girls, in the southern town of Minab. It was a Saturday morning, and school was in session. According to Iranian state media, at least 165 people were killed, mostly young girls between the ages of seven and 12. Another 96 were severely injured. Eyewitness and open source intelligence reports corroborate the claims of mass civilian casualties. Both Iran and Israel have denied responsibility. The United States has said it is “looking into” allegations that the school was destroyed by one of its missiles. Maybe, given the volume of the bombardment, they’ve lost track. 

It is too soon to know why the school was targeted – or whether it was an error. Either way, the U.S. military’s reliance on AI raises difficult questions.

AIs get things wrong all the time. Maybe it’s an extra finger in an AI-generated image, or a ‘hallucinated’ reference in a research report. Or, maybe, an algorithm sends a missile to the wrong address. That’s why Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has said that weapons “that take humans out of the loop entirely and automate selecting and engaging targets” are simply not reliable enough. That position — along with Anthropic’s refusal to allow Claude to be used for mass domestic surveillance (although they are just fine with foreign surveillance) — led to the Pentagon cancelling a $200-million contract with the company on Friday, the day before the attacks on Iran began. The Department of War immediately signed a new deal, minus any ethical guardrails, with OpenAI.

Anthropic’s confrontation with the Pentagon has burnished its reputation as an “ethical” AI company. But it may have found its ethical backbone too late. Critics argue that even within Anthropic’s “red lines”, there is enormous potential for abuse, while a “human in the loop” does not necessarily prevent mistakes — raising questions about who, exactly, is responsible when these mistakes result in fatalities. Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestine, accused Amazon, Google and Microsoft in a 2025 of being “complicit in genocide” for providing cloud storage systems to the Israeli military. Anthropic’s integration into the U.S. military has been much deeper.

While Israel and the U.S. are waging an AI-powered war, Iran is responding with a technological revolution of its own. The Islamic Republic has pioneered the production of low-cost one-way attack drones, most notably the Shahed-136, which costs just $34,000 to produce and as much as $4 million to shoot down. These are battle-tested: Russia has launched an estimated 57,000 Shahed-type drones in its war against Ukraine. Despite U.S. reliance on its own high-tech AI-powered systems, an American version of the Shahed also made its debut, alongside Claude, in the attack on Iran. 

In response, Iran has aimed more than 1000 drones at neighboring Gulf states since the war broke out on Saturday. Hundreds have been shot down, but even the most sophisticated air defences struggle with this sheer volume, and dozens have struck their targets, threatening to prolong this war and cause more damage to U.S. allies than anticipated. It is significant that these targets included at least three Amazon data centers in Dubai and Bahrain. Just last month, Amazon announced that it was making Anthropic’s Claude available to its Middle Eastern customers. Claude experienced two global outages this week — it is not clear if these were related to the data center attacks. 

Tech evangelists promise that artificial intelligence will, one day, cure cancer, end poverty and greatly increase our quality of life. But the new technology’s most obvious impact has been on warfare. For those with access to them, AI systems like Claude make it dramatically easier to bomb hundreds of targets at the same time — and much harder to figure out who is accountable when something goes wrong. On Truth Social, Donald Trump — who has promised to stop wars, not start them — posted approvingly that technology and munitions now mean Wars “can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully.” 

As the bombing of Iran continues, we are not far from a time when AI not only parses data to select targets, it actually chooses when to pull the trigger. And advanced AI models have far fewer qualms, for instance, about deploying nuclear weapons than humans faced with similar scenarios. One day, when — if — war crimes investigators are able to pin down exactly who is responsible for killing dozens of young girls in Minab, tech bosses may find themselves implicated alongside military and political leaders. “The AI did it” can’t be their defense.

A version of this story was published in this week’s Coda Currents newsletter. Sign up here.

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On April 29, ten African heads of state met via video chat. The meeting was presided over by South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, in his capacity as chair of the African Union. Also present was AU Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat and John Nkengasong, the director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

The purpose of the meeting was to assess Africa’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and determine what should happen next. Broadly speaking, they were all on the same page - until Andry Rajoelina began to speak.

Rajoelina, the 45-year-old president of Madagascar, was the youngest person in attendance.  He came bearing what he said was good news: Madagascar had discovered a cure for Covid-19.

This was not the first time Rajoelina had made such a claim. He has been aggressively touting the benefits of Covid-Organics, a herbal drink invented by the Malagasy Institute of Applied Research. Rajoelina says the bitter drink can both prevent and cure Covid-19, and has distributed it to schoolchildren across Madagascar.

Rajoelina - a former DJ who first came to power in a military coup in 2009 - has released no evidence to support his claims.

At the meeting, Rajoelina urged his fellow African heads of state to embrace the herbal remedy. The other presidents did not push back, even though most had deep reservations. “You know how it works at the African Union. Once people say such a thing, his peers are supposed to compliment him,” said one source who was party to the discussions.

Grand claims

The Malagasy Institute of Applied Research occupies a tree-lined plot on the outskirts of Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital. It was established in 1957 by Albert Rakoto Ratsimamanga, one of the country’s pre-eminent scientists, to research how local plants and traditional practices could be used to treat disease. Among its successes is Madeglucyl, an anti-diabetic drug derived from the Eugenia jambolana plant, widely used in Madagascar and abroad.

Covid-Organics is its latest formulation. The primary ingredient is artemisia, indigenous to China, imported to Madagascar in the 1970s, and now widely grown on the island.

Like chloroquine (also controversially touted by a head of state - Donald Trump - as a Covid-19 treatment), the plant’s active compound artemisinin is a recognised antimalarial treatment. But the World Health Organisation (WHO) advises against the use of the artemisinin compound as a preventative, and of the artemisia plant altogether, because the short half-life of the former and its low concentration in the latter accelerate resistance to treatment in active cases, rendering it useless against malaria.

President Rajoelina has made grand claims about the efficacy of Covid-Organics. It has healed two people who had Covid-19, he said. It has the “potential to change the course of history.” At a glitzy launch event in April, he said: “All trials and tests have been conducted and its effectiveness in reducing and elimination of symptoms has been proven in the treatment of Covid-19 patients in Madagascar.”

But this cannot possibly be true, said Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Madhi is also a founder and director of the African Leadership Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise. “There is absolutely no evidence that it has cured anything,” he told the Mail & Guardian.

Madhi noted that Madagascar only has a small number of confirmed coronavirus cases (158 as of 7 May). “That’s definitely not enough for a trial. Citing these sorts of numbers is a meaningless exercise.” 

He dismissed President Rajoelina’s claim that two people had been “cured” by the herbal remedy. “The majority of people who have this virus show no symptoms. Of those who develop symptoms, 85% of them have mild illness. You could treat them with water and it would have the same effect.”

History repeating itself?

This is not the first time Professor Madhi has witnessed politicians make grand claims at odds with established medical evidence. He lived through that dark period in South Africa’s history during which its leaders - principally former president Thabo Mbeki - disputed the science on how to treat HIV/Aids. At one point, cabinet minister Manto Tshabalala Msimang suggested beetroot and garlic were more effective treatments than antiretrovirals - despite all evidence to the contrary. A Harvard University study found in 2009 that this misguided policy may have caused more than 300,000 premature deaths. 

Both Africa CDC and the WHO are concerned about history repeating itself - and that using an untested herbal remedy such as Covid-Organics could have the opposite of the intended impact.

“We would caution and advise against countries adopting a product that has not been taken through tests to see its efficacy against Covid-19 and its safety in different population groups,” said Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s Africa region director. “We are concerned that touting this product as a preventative measure might make people feel safe to do other things [against medical recommendations, such as neglecting social distancing].”

The WHO and Africa CDC have offered to partner with Madagascar to test Covid-Organics in a proper medical trial. So too has South Africa. John Nkengasong, the director of Africa CDC, told the Mail & Guardian: “I heard the briefing the president of Madagascar made ... [we] look forward to seeing the data and the design of the study. We stand by to partner with the government of Madagascar to understand how the drug works and the science behind it.”

So far, Madagascar has not shared the data underpinning its claims. Both the government and the Malagasy Institute of Applied Research declined to be interviewed for this story.

Clinical trials are critical

A lack of evidence has not deterred several leaders from embracing Covid-Organics. Last week, Madagascar dispatched 1.5 tonnes of the herbal drink to Equatorial Guinea. Another shipment went to Guinea-Bissau. President George Weah personally greeted a plane as it delivered samples for Liberia. And Tanzanian President John Magufuli - who has claimed three days of prayer can cure Covid-19 - said he would send a plane to Antananarivo to collect a consignment.

But sources within the African Union suggest most leaders remain unconvinced - even if diplomatic protocol is preventing them from saying so publicly.

One of the few institutions to speak out is West Africa’s regional bloc Ecowas, which distanced itself from claims it had ordered Covid-Organics. It said although it recognises the importance of traditional and plant-based medicine, “we can only support and endorse products that have been shown to be effective through scientific study”.

The WHO has taken a similar line. This week, it said: “Many plants and substances are being proposed [as Covid-19 cures] without the minimum requirements and evidence of quality, safety and efficacy. Africans deserve to use medicines tested to the same standards as people in the rest of the world. Even if therapies are derived from traditional practice and natural, establishing their efficacy and safety through rigorous clinical trials is critical.”

This story was first published in The Continent, the new pan-African newspaper published in partnership with the Mail & Guardian. It is designed to be read and shared on WhatsApp.

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The post Madagascar pushes untested herbal coronavirus remedy on its neighbors appeared first on Coda Story.