False claim of Iranian airstrike in Djibouti misleads with clips of fires in Lebanon and Russia
- Published on May 15, 2026 at 14:58
- 5 min read
- By Tolera FIKRU GEMTA, AFP Ethiopia
Djibouti hosts a US naval base called Camp Lemonnier, the only American military facility of its kind in Africa. Amid a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East war, a clip circulating in Ethiopia showing buildings engulfed in flames claims Iran struck the base and other properties in Djibouti. However, this is false; Djibouti has not been attacked by Iran. The footage combines two unrelated incidents: a fire in Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave and a blaze in Lebanon.
The post shared on Facebook on April 12, 2026, includes a caption reading: “Allahu akbar…Djibouti.”
The phrase is repeated as a text overlay in the accompanying 23-second clip showing burning buildings in two separate locations.
“Djibouti is currently being engulfed by a large fire,” says a male narrator speaking Amharic, one of Ethiopia’s main languages.
“Djibouti hosts an American military base, and Iran has destroyed extensive property in Djibouti with missiles today,” he continues, adding that “reports indicate the American base in Djibouti has also been attacked”.
Djibouti is home to Camp Lemonnier, the only permanent US military base in Africa which serves as a key operational hub for US Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa (archived here).
Prior to a temporary truce in the Middle East war, Iran retaliated against US-Israeli airstrikes by targeting American military and commercial interests in Gulf states (archived here).
However, claims that the Islamic republic fired missiles at Djibouti, including at Camp Lemonnier naval base, are false.
Kaliningrad, Russia
AFP Fact Check conducted reverse image searches on keyframes from the video and found that it consists of two separate segments of footage.
The first part closely resembles an Instagram video uploaded on April 5, 2026 (archived here).
The accompanying caption in Russian reads: “The Giant Shopping Center is on fire! Details are being confirmed.”
The footage shows black smoke and flames billowing from a building on a busy street. The names on the buildings are displayed in Russian.
AFP Fact Check compared the YouTube video and the clip falsely labelled as Djibouti. While the two are not identical, they show the same scene, with matching street signs and buildings visible in both.
Other footage of the fire was shared in news articles here and here. According to these reports, published in English and Russian, a large blaze swept through the “Giant” shopping centre on Moskovsky Prospekt in Kaliningrad, forcing about 140 people to evacuate (archived here and here).
Kaliningrad is a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea.
The name of the shopping centre appears on Google Maps, although the building itself does not match the older Street View imagery, likely because the structure was built after 2012, when the available imagery was last updated.
However, photographs published on Google Maps in recent years, including a shot of a cinema signage in Russian reading "Кинотеатр", match the "Giant" shopping centre seen in the circulating video.
Tyre, Lebanon
Search results for the second half of the misrepresented video established that the footage was published by Al Jazeera on X on March 4, 2026 (archived here).
“A huge fire was seen in Tyre in southern Lebanon after Israeli strikes targeted the city. Local media said the attack came without prior warning,” the post reads.
Tyre is a UNESCO World Heritage City located on the southern coast of Lebanon.
A huge fire was seen in Tyre in southern Lebanon after Israeli strikes targeted the city. Local media said the attack came without prior warning pic.twitter.com/qZRn4fpDF7
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 4, 2026
A comparison of keyframes from the original video and the mislabelled clip shows that the footage is the same. Matching features include a distinctive peach-coloured building, the fireball and smoke plumes, a Honda vehicle and the motorbike rider wearing a tracksuit.
A search in AFP’s archives led to a longer video captured at the same site on March 4, 2026 (archived here).
“Civil defence forces attempt to extinguish a blaze that erupted after an Israeli bombardment on a solar farm and electricity generation facility in Lebanon's southern coastal city of Tyre,” the video's description reads in part.
Although filmed from a different angle, the same landmarks identified in the Al Jazeera clip are visible at about the 64-second mark in the AFP video.
AFP reported on March 5, 2026, that an Israeli attack killed eight people in southern Lebanon (archived here).
An AFP journalist who was in Djibouti when the claim was circulating on Facebook confirmed that there was no missile attack on Camp Lemonnier or anywhere in the country at the time.
AFP Fact Check has previously debunked posts that claim to show Iran bombing the US embassy in Djibouti and Addis Ababa (here and here).
Copyright © AFP 2017-2026. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
