Pages and accounts on social media circulated a statement attributed to Salman Hikmat al-Hijri, claiming he said that if they had wanted to acquire nuclear submarines they would have done so long ago, and that in the coming phase they are focusing on equipping naval warships and strengthening their military capabilities to build a Sweida state army to be the strongest in the Middle East.
The fact-checking team conducted a search using the keywords in the circulating text and reviewed open sources, official channels, and pages associated with Salman Hikmat al-Hijri, as well as trusted media outlets, and found no statement, interview, video recording, or official announcement containing the phrases attributed to him or confirming that he made them.
Why is this claim false?
Fabricating false statements: Phrases that were never verified were attributed to Salman Hikmat al-Hijri and circulated without any official or reliable source, in order to suggest an escalatory military posture and spread a narrative unsupported by any documented evidence.
