False claim US attacked Iraq as part of a new war in 2024; audio from 2023 report | Fact Check

Isabel C. Morales, USA TODAY
·3 min read

The claim: Video shows US attack on Iraq, 'war has begun'

[En Español: Falsa afirmación de que EE.UU. atacó Irak como parte de  nueva guerra en 2024; audio es de un reporte de 2023]

An April 28 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) includes video of a large nighttime explosion and people running in a large plaza in broad daylight.

“Now the war has begun, the U.S. launches an attack on Iraq,” says the commentator in the video in Spanish.

The post was shared more than 200 times in two days.

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The U.S. did not attack Iraq in April 2024 as part of a broader war. The audio asserting otherwise was clipped from a news broadcast referencing a December 2023 attack.

Reporter's description of strike is from 2023, not from 2024

The video in the post uses parts of an audio track of a CNN reporter describing a U.S. airstrike on Kataib Hezbollah sites in Iraq on Dec. 26, 2023.

“We can confirm that the voice in the video is that of our correspondents in reporting events dating to last December, used on a fake video that does not correspond to any recent CNN en Español reporting,” Isabel Bucaram, a CNN en Español spokesperson, told USA TODAY.

There have been recent U.S. military actions in Iraq, however.

The U.S. airstrike in December 2023 in Iraq was ordered by President Joe Biden against members of Kataib Hezbollah, a pro-Iran armed group that operates in Iraq. The airstrike targeted three locations after three U.S. service members were injured, one critically, by an attack drone on Christmas Day. Kataib Hezbollah and other affiliated groups took credit for the attack.

Fact check: Video of explosions over Israel predates Iran’s attack in 2024

In February 2024, the U.S. attacked targets in Iraq and Syria after three soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded in an attack on a U.S. base in Jordan. U.S. officials blamed the attack on the base on Iranian-supplied militias. There are no credible reports of any U.S. attack on Iraq in April 2024 or that the countries are at war.

The video posted on Facebook also shows a clip of people running in a large plaza. The footage is not recent and appears to match a scene in El Zocalo in Mexico City.

The video posted on Facebook also shows a clip of people running in a large plaza that has been circulating on social media since at least 2022. The footage shows El Zocalo in Mexico City, not a city in Iraq.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video uses old audio and video to claim US attacked Iraq | Fact check