WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Photos and videos show genuine footage from the 2026 war in Iran.
OUR VERDICT
False. The videos and photos in question are either AI-generated or unrelated to the 2026 war.
AAP FACTCHECK - Social media has been flooded with misinformation related to the US-Israeli attack on Iran and Iran's subsequent retaliatory strikes.
AAP FactCheck has found numerous examples of content generated using artificial intelligence (AI) being passed off as genuine war footage, or old imagery being misattributed to recent events.
Australian-based commentator Maram Susli (also known as Syrian Girl or Partisan Girl) posted a video of a burning building to X, which she claimed was "Footage of CIA headquarters in Dubai targeted this morning by Iran".
However, the video actually shows a 2015 fire at a residential building in Sharjah, a United Arab Emirates city that neighbours Dubai.
The residential fire was reported by many news outlets, including Fox News, BBC News, Gulf News and the Dubai-based Khaleej Times, in October 2015.
The 'Syrian Girl' X account also posted videos and images that claim to show three Dubai landmarks on fire - the Burj Khalifa tower, the Burj Al Arab hotel and the Palm Jumeirah island district.
While the Palm Jumeirah district and the Burj Al Arab hotel were both damaged as a result of Iranian attacks on February 28 (local time), there is no credible evidence that the Burj Khalifa tower suffered damage.
A reverse image search using TinEye reveals the image of the Burj Khalifa was taken more than a decade ago and does not show the building on fire.
Instead, it shows the 828-metre-tall structure surrounded by fog, as explained in a 2015 Daily Telegraph (UK) article about the image.
Some social media users have posted a photo that purportedly shows Iran's deceased supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, lying under rubble.
The image is an AI-generated fake.
Iranian state media said on February 28 that Khamenei was killed in his office during US-Israeli airstrikes on Tehran.
However, at the time of writing, no credible images have been released showing the 86-year-old's body being recovered.
When AAP FactCheck uploaded the image to Google's SynthID AI detection tool, it detected a digital watermark that confirmed it was digitally-generated.
Another Australian social media user has posted a video, which they claim shows the funeral of Khamenei.
"Millions at the funeral of the Iranian leader," the caption of the video reads.
However, the video instead shows the February 2025 funeral of Hezbollah's slain leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The procession matches that shown in an SBS report of the Beirut funeral.
Lebanon and Hezbollah flags can also be seen on the truck carrying the coffins and draped over the coffins themselves.
Other social media users are posting 'before' and 'after' satellite images falsely claiming to show the destruction of a large US military radar at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
The claim is false. The images do not show Al Udeid Air Base, which is located outside Doha.
Instead, the 'before' image is a satellite image of the US Fifth Fleet Naval Base in Manama, Bahrain, taken from Google Maps.
The 'after' shot appears to be an AI-generated version of the same Google Maps image of the US naval base, digitally manipulated to include fake damage.
The AI image includes additional building structures at the top and bottom of the frame that are inexplicably absent from the 'before' image.
Google's SynthID AI detection tool identified a digital watermark that confirmed "all or part" of the image was generated with Google AI.
The claim that the images show the destruction of a radar at the Al Udeid Air Base has also been debunked by fact-checkers at Misbar and BBC Verify.
Al-Jazeera reported on March 1, 2026, that two ballistic missiles did strike the Al Udeid Air Base.
Genuine satellite images published by Reuters show the US Fifth Fleet Naval base has also been damaged, including the white dome seen in the falsely labelled 'before' and 'after' images.
A New York Times 'before' and 'after' image of the naval base also shows damage to the buildings, but the details differ to the damage shown in the X post.
AAP FactCheck is an accredited member of the International Fact-Checking Network. To keep up with our latest fact checks, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, BlueSky, TikTok and YouTube.
