Accounts on social media circulated a video whose publishers claimed that it documents large recent gatherings as part of preparations by the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces on the Syrian Iraqi border.
The fact-checking team traced the circulating clip by breaking it into still frames and running a reverse image search on them, and it emerged that the video is old and has no connection to current movements, with the results showing that the clip had been published earlier on 9 March 2025. The team also found another video published on YouTube four years ago documenting the same gathering, and a close comparison between the two clips established a complete match in the arrangement of the flags and the details of the geographic area, confirming that the circulating clip is not recent.
Why is this claim misleading?
Out of temporal context: An old clip of a military gathering was republished and framed in a new context claiming it shows recent preparations and mobilization by the Popular Mobilization Forces on the Syrian Iraqi border, in order to suggest an escalation on the ground that the facts do not support.
