After Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had struck US military targets in Bahrain in July 2026, social media posts recirculated an old video falsely claiming it showed a massive fire at a US base in Bahrain. The footage actually depicts a fire at a market in St. Petersburg, Russia, in December 2025.
Misleading: The video is old and does not depict a recent U.S. attack on facilities or sites belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Misbar's team found that the original video was posted on social media in April 2025, claiming to show an ammunition depot explosion in Kirzhach, Russia's Vladimir Oblast.
Claim: A video is claimed to show Iran attacking secret American facilities in response to a US attack in Bandar Abbas.
Fact: The video actually shows a massive fire at Pravoberezhnny Market in St Petersburg, Russia on 10 December 2025
The video is a fabrication. Al Jazeera has not published any investigation on this topic. In reality, UK, France, and Germany have led an international coalition countering Iran's blockade and pushing for the restoration of freedom of navigation.
Claim: An image authentically shows an Israeli passport belonging to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. [...] It was not the first time the image of Zelenskyy's alleged Israeli passport spread online - it first emerged in December 2025 from a parody account on X that the platform has since suspended. Because Snopes was unable to identify any earlier instances of the image, we've rated this claim as originated as satire.
Did Russian President Vladimir Putin say "Don't dare to touch the Strait of Hormuz" on April 1, 2026? No, that's not true: The posts attributing those words to him originated from self-described satire and parody accounts. The fake story was spreading across social media platforms paired with a well-known video meme showing Putin walking.
With the Pentagon potentially seeking a $200 billion supplemental package to fund the ongoing war with Iran, President Donald Trump defended that figure in part by saying U.S. ammunition "was taken down by giving so much to Ukraine." He then exaggerated the amount of aid to Ukraine and falsely said that former President Joe Biden "didn't rebuild anything" in the defense stockpile. Trump has a point that the military assistance provided to Ukraine reduced the U.S. reserve of weapons. But that aid largely has not affected the military operations in Iran, defense experts told us. Furthermore, Biden signed multiple spending bills passed by Congress that included funding to replace the older weapons that the U.S. gave to Ukraine with new items. Experts also told us that Biden's administration put money into increasing the production of munitions for the military.
Claim: The video is shared as drone footage of massive destruction in Tel Aviv, Israel after recent attacks
Fact: The video actually shows damage in Bakhmut, Ukraine after Russian attacks and not Tel Aviv.
Videos of an explosion on a bridge have been shared on social media alongside claims the King Fahd Bridge linking Bahrain and Saudi Arabia was hit by a missile. But the video actually shows a 2022 explosion on the Kerch bridge, which connects Russia and the annexed Crimean peninsula.
In reality, the video features a woman talking about anti-government protests in Iran. Propaganda edited the footage and faked the heroine's voice using AI.