Published On 9/7/2026
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Last update: 18:23 (Mecca time)
US President Donald Trump, through his “Truth Social” platform, published a photo and video clip linking them to the attacks that Washington said its forces carried out against sites in Iran at dawn on Thursday.
Within a short time, the scenes moved from Trump’s account to other platforms, after Israeli, Iranian, opposition, and Arab channels and accounts recirculated them as footage of the recent American strikes that targeted several areas in Iran, including Chabahar, Konarak, and Bandar Abbas.
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Because the publication came from the account of the US President himself, the scenes gained additional momentum, and many accounts treated them as direct documentation of what happened in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Old photo
In one of his posts, Trump reposted a photo showing a huge fire and thick plumes of smoke above an urban area, saying that the operation was “in response to Iran’s bombing of ships,” and warning that the matter “will get much worse” if the bombing is repeated.
Later, Trump posted the same photo directly on his “Truth Social” account, without attaching it to an independent source proving that it was from Chabahar or that it was taken during the Thursday dawn attacks.
Following the previous circulation of the image, it turns out that it did not appear for the first time in the context of Thursday’s strikes.
The same image was previously circulated last March via the “Sabri Shahsovar” account, as part of a post about the Iran war, that is, more than 3 months before the current wave of publishing.
Video that crosses contexts
Along with the photo, Trump posted a 19-second clip, showing the moment of bombing and hearing the sound of explosions, and presented it within the context of the most recent American bombing of Iran.
The clip quickly moved to several channels and accounts, including Israeli accounts, as well as Arab and Iranian accounts on the “X” platform.
By examining the scene, it appears that it was published before the beginning of Thursday’s attacks, as it was published in the context of the American strikes on Bandar Abbas at dawn on Wednesday.
The scene from Bandar Abbas was not the only one, as Trump re-published more than one video on his account, including a clip of smoke rising in a residential area.
A reverse search revealed that the video was of smoke columns rising from the city of Karaj yesterday, Wednesday, and not of the strikes that targeted Iran at dawn on Thursday.
The videos posted by Trump spread across various platforms, and media accounts covered what the US President published, which contributed to the spread of misinformation across the platforms.
Verification shows that Trump relied in his posts on circulating clips and photos published by Iranian accounts or regular media accounts, rather than reliable sources to which the videos can be attributed.
The widespread circulation of old scenes exaggerated the size of the American strike and expanded its geographical scope, based on scenes from previous strikes that gained credibility from Trump’s publication of them.
Less than a month after stopping the war, mutual military strikes were renewed after Trump said that he believed that the memorandum of understanding signed with Iran had ended, following attacks on 3 commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, for which Washington accused Tehran of responsibility.
