Video of Iranian missile strike on US military facility is AI-generated
- Published on April 3, 2026 at 05:10
- 2 min read
- By Maximiliano ECHEGOYEN, AFP Chile
- Translation and adaptation AFP Thailand
Retaliatory Iranian strikes against US interests in the Middle East have targeted bases in Kuwait, but video circulating on social media that purportedly shows a military facility being pummelled with missiles is AI-generated. The clip contains multiple visual errors indicative of synthetically created content.
"What mainstream media won't show you. The US base in Kuwait is under siege. Trump terribly underestimated Iran," reads the caption of a Facebook reel shared on March 20, 2026.
The 15-second clip appears to show bombs exploding in and around a desert military base.
The same video was also shared in similar Facebook, TikTok and X posts. It was also shared in posts claiming it shows an Iranian attack on the "world's largest liquefied natural gas hub in Qatar".
It circulated as Iran responded to the joint US-Israeli attacks on the Islamic republic with strikes on Israel and several Gulf countries hosting US military bases in the region (archived link).
Six US service members in Kuwait were killed during Iran's initial wave of retaliatory attacks, which the New York Times reported had struck at least three military sites in the country (archived here and here).
But the footage does not show an Iranian attack on a US base in Kuwait.
A closer examination of the circulating footage shows it contains several visual inconsistencies indicative of AI-generated content.
For example, one soldier appears to merge into a crate, crates and vehicles remain unaffected by the explosions, and the explosions are indistinguishable from one another.
Moreover, at the end of the video, an object appears on the railing that was absent from earlier in the clip.
According to an analysis run through the DeepFake-O-Meter tool developed by University at Buffalo in New York, the video's audio was synthetically generated (archived link),
A separate analysis of the clip using the DetectVideo AI tool also indicated the footage was likely AI-generated or manipulated (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation stemming from the Middle East war.
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