Posts falsely claim to show attack on US forces in Baghdad
- Published on October 3, 2024 at 23:09
- 5 min read
- By Daniel GALGANO, AFP USA
Copyright © AFP 2017-2024. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"BREAKING: US military base comes under attack in Baghdad," says a September 30 X post from Sulaiman Ahmed, a creator who has monetized misinformation about Israel's war with Hamas.
Another post sharing a different image says: "Breaking: The American terroists' (sic) base near Baghdad International Airport has been attacked."
The same claim and images have spread elsewhere on X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Gettr. Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency also published the first image in an article about the attack.
Three Katyusha rockets were fired September 30 at an area near Baghdad International Airport. Initial reports indicated the strike targeted Camp Victory, a former US military base now under Iraqi control.
US Ambassador Alina Romanowski later said in an October 1 X post(archived here) that the attack was on the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Compound in the same area, adding that there were no casualties. Iraqi officials said they have begun an investigation into who launched the strike.
The United States has about 2,500 personnel in the country working to fight Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria (archived here). Armed groups loyal to Tehran have demanded American troops to leave the region.
The international coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq is due to end its mission in September 2025, but it is still unclear how many US troops will remain after that deadline.
The attempted attack in Iraq came after Israel shifted its focus from the war in Gaza, which erupted after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attacks, to securing its northern border with Lebanon, where it faces Hezbollah.
Partly in response to the September 27 killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iran on October 1 fired more than 200 missiles across Israel, most of which were intercepted. Lebanon's disaster management agency said the death toll as of October 3 was 1,974 since Israel and Hezbollah began exchanging fire.
However, the images circulating online predate the current conflict in the Middle East and were not taken in Iraq.
A reverse image search reveals the first picture -- a close-up view of an explosion near a building -- was taken in 2011 by photographer Tim Wynkoop for The Express-Times newspaper at a gas facility in the US state of New Jersey (archived here).
"A (sic) explosion tonight at Linde Electronics and Specialty Gas in Alpha sends a fireball into the night sky," the caption says.
Wynkoop confirmed to AFP on October 1 that he snapped the photo in the town of Alpha, New Jersey near the Pennsylvania border. The Express-Times also said the photograph was one of its images and was taken April 26, 2011.
Since 2013, the picture has been repeatedly misrepresented as disasters in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria and India -- including by multiple Iranian state-funded media outlets.
The second supposed image of the Baghdad attack was taken by AFP photographer Said Khatib in February 2020 after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. AFP has previously fact-checked other posts misusing the same picture.
AFP has debunked other claims about the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah here.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us