Pages on social media circulated a video clip, with those sharing it claiming that it was recent and documented Syrian fighters being captured in Yemen, coinciding with claims that the Houthi group had taken control of the city of Mocha and captured thousands of Syrian army and security personnel.
The fact-checking team traced the clip digitally by breaking it into still frames and running a reverse image search on them, and found that the video dates to May 26, 2020 and documents Syrian fighters in Tripoli, Libya, not in Yemen. The team also reviewed media coverage of developments in Mocha and found that it addressed field developments and the Houthi takeover of the city, without including anything indicating the capture of thousands of army or security personnel.
Why is this claim misleading?
An old video republished in a different context: The claim relied on a clip dating to 2020 that was filmed in Tripoli, Libya, and re-presented it as recent and from Yemen, while crediting it to an international news agency to lend it credibility, in order to suggest that a mass capture of Syrian personnel had taken place in Mocha.
