A video has been viewed thousands of times in Facebook and Twitter posts that claim it is aerial footage of a US drone strike killing a top Iranian military commander General Qassem Soleimani "in Iran". The claim is false; the footage is actually from a military simulation video game; Soleimani was killed on January 3, 2020 by a US strike in Baghdad, Iraq.
The video was shared in this Facebook post on January 6, 2020. The one-minute and 40-second long clip appears to show military thermal imagery of a missile strike on a convoy.
"80 American terrorists killed in Iran missile strikes"
The post’s caption reads: “American drone attack on Soleimani in Iran.”
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:
PHOTO: AFPThe video has also been shared repeatedly on Facebook, for example here, here, here and here and on Twitter here and here.
But the claim is false; a reverse image search using key frames from the video found that the footage is actually from a military simulation video game called AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron.
The footage was posted on YouTube here on May 25, 2015, on a video gaming channel Byte Conveyor Studios with a title: ‘AC-130 Gunship Simulator- Convoy Engagement’.
The caption of the YouTube video, which has over 5.8 million views, reads: “Development preview of our upcoming game for mobile platforms, ‘AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron’. Voted TOP 50 2014 App of the Year at SlideDB.”
Below are screenshot comparisons from the misleading video (L) and the video game footage from YouTube (R):
PHOTO: AFPAnother longer version of the video game footage was published on YouTube here on May 13, 2015.
Soleimani was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, not in Iran as the misleading Facebook post claims. AFP’s report on the attack can be seen here.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ