Beirut blast clip misrepresented as South Asia conflict

Published on May 12, 2025 at 04:28
3 min read
By AFP Indonesia

Old footage from the 2020 port explosion that flattened large parts of the Lebanese capital Beirut resurfaced online as Pakistan and India engaged in four days of intense fighting before a US-brokered truce was announced on May 10. The scene matches images of a Beirut street seen on Google Maps.

"BREAKING NEWS: Pakistan and India are engaged in an open war and attacking each other brutally," reads part of an Indonesian-language post on X on May 7, 2025.

The post features a six-second clip of a major explosion levelling buildings along a street.

Screenshot of false post, taken on May 9, 2025

Similar Indonesian and English-language posts surfaced on Facebook, Instagram and Threads after India launched air strikes on May 7 targeting "terrorist camps" in Pakistan, in retaliation for an April 22 attack in the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir that killed 26 people (archived link). New Delhi blamed the assault on Islamabad, which denies the accusation.

More than 60 people were killed on both sides as the nuclear-armed rivals engaged in four days of intense fighting before US President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced a truce on May 10 (archived link).

A reverse image search using keyframes found the circulating clip is part of longer footage published on the YouTube channel of broadcaster CNBC International on August 2, 2021 (archived link)

"August 4 marks one year on from the Beirut blast and no one has been held to account," its title reads.

Screenshot comparison of the video in false posts (L) and the YouTube report from CNBC International (right)

The August 4, 2020 explosion killed more than 220 people, injured some 6,500 and devastated swathes of Lebanon's capital (archived link).

Authorities said the explosion was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate fertiliser had been stored unsafely for years.

Nobody has been held responsible for the blast, one of history's largest non-nuclear explosions.

AFP scanned Google Maps imagery of neighbourhoods near the Port of Beirut and found the video's matching location along a street called Chafaka (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (L) and its location in Beirut seen on Google Maps street view

AFP has debunked a wave of misinformation related to the India-Pakistan conflict here.

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