Old clip of fire at public market falsely linked to Middle East war
- Published on May 8, 2026 at 10:17
- 2 min read
- By Chayanit ITTHIPONGMAETEE, AFP Thailand
The UAE has borne the brunt of Iran's retaliatory attacks on the Gulf during the Middle East war, but video shared on social media does not show a Dubai gas facility destroyed by an Iranian drone strike as posts claim. The footage in fact shows a fire at a market in Ajman, another city in the United Arab Emirates, in August 2020.
"A gas separation station in Dubai has been completely destroyed in an Iranian drone attack this morning," says the Thai-language caption of an X video shared on May 5, 2026.
The 22-second video shows a building engulfed by a massive fire, filmed from a passing car.
The footage was also shared in similar Facebook and X posts, as UAE air defences engaged missiles and drones from Iran for a second consecutive day on May 5 (archived link).
A day earlier an Iranian drone attack caused a fire at an energy installation in Fujairah resulting in three injuries, weeks into a fragile ceasefire to the Middle East war (archived link).
The UAE has been targeted by more than 2,800 Iranian drones and missiles during the Middle East war, which was initiated by joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February (archived link). The war has rocked the wealthy UAE, cutting off most oil exports and undercutting the safe-haven image that helped it become the region's financial hub.
The video circulating online, however, predates the current conflict and AFP previously debunked claims the same footage showed an Iranian attack on Dubai International Airport in March 2026.
Market fire in 2020
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same footage posted on Facebook more than five years earlier (archived link).
The August 6, 2020 Facebook video was credited to "Sujan Gaire". Its Nepali-language caption describes a blaze in Ajman, a city in the UAE (archived link).
AFP reached out to the Facebook page for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication.
According to an August 5, 2020 report by Gulf News, a Dubai-based English-language news outlet, the blaze broke out at a public market in Ajman (archived link). The market was closed at the time due to Covid-19 safety measures and no casualties were reported, but 125 shops were destroyed (archived link).
Similar clips of the fire, filmed from other passing vehicles, also circulated in other social media posts from early August 2020 (archived here and here).
Another clip of the fire was posted by the Ajman police, which said in an Arabic-language caption that the blaze caused parts of the building to collapse (archived link).
The circulating footage corresponds to Google Street View imagery from Ajman (archived link)
AFP has also debunked other misinformation linked to the Middle East war.
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