US warehouse fire video falsely shared as 'Iraqi militant drone attack'
- Published on March 15, 2024 at 05:25
- Updated on March 15, 2024 at 05:27
- 3 min read
- By Tommy WANG, Chayanit ITTHIPONGMAETEE, AFP Hong Kong, AFP Middle East & North Africa
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"Iraqi guerrillas of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq have bombed a power plant at Haifa International Airport in Israel's largest city," reads a post on the Chinese social media site Weibo on March 6, 2024.
"An Iraqi drone loaded with explosives crashed into a building, followed by a large explosion."
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq is a loose alliance of Iran-backed groups angered by US support for Israel in the Gaza war. It has claimed responsibility for attacks on US and allied troops in the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October 2023.
The United States has retaliated with several deadly strikes targeting these groups.
On March 5, 2024, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it had launched a drone attack on a power plant at Israel's Haifa Airport power plant.
However, Israeli media reported no such incident occurred (archived link).
The video was shared in similar false posts on Weibo, Douyin -- the Chinese version of TikTok -- and Chinese video-sharing platforms Bilibili and Xigua Shipin. It has also spread on Facebook and X in various languages, including Arabic, English and Thai.
The false claim was also shared on Chinese news aggregator portals Tencent and Netease.
In reality, the clip shows a fire at a warehouse in the United States.
Warehouse fire
A reverse image search and keyword searches found the footage published by US broadcaster ABC News on its YouTube channel on March 5, 2024 (archived link).
According to the video's caption, it shows a "fiery explosion at a vaping distributing company in Michigan that killed a 19-year-old a quarter mile away".
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image taken from the false post (left) and ABC News' YouTube Channel (right):
ABC News credited the video to a person called John Versace.
AFP subsequently found he had shared the video on Instagram alongside the caption: "Huge building fire in Clinton Township."
The Clinton Township police department published a statement on March 5, 2024, referring to the blaze at a commercial building called Select Distributors (archived links here and here).
AFP found Google Street View corresponded with the reported filming location (archived link).
CBS News quoted a local fire chief saying a blaze caused butane canisters in the warehouse to explode (archived link).
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