What was claimed
A video shows an American airbase burnt to ashes in Saudi Arabia by an Iranian missile attack.
Our verdict
False. This video shows the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on the port of Hudaydah in Yemen from July 2024.
Video does not show American airbase ablaze after Iranian strike in Saudi Arabia
Viral posts claiming a video shows an American airbase on fire in Saudi Arabia following an Iranian missile attack are misleading.
The footage has been shared on Instagram, where it has been viewed over 180,000 times, with the caption: “American Airbase burnt to ashes in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Riyadh Iran missile attack.”
But the clip being shared is not from this year and was not filmed in Saudi Arabia.
The video shows a huge fire on the horizon, with clouds of smoke billowing up, and a number of buildings and a road in the foreground.
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An almost-identical video from a similar angle was posted on YouTube in July 2024 by an Yemen-based news channel with the title (translated from Arabic): “New footage of Israeli airstrikes on the port of #Hudaydah.”
Features like the unique roof saying “unicef”, the panels on the roof of the next door building and patches of greenery match satellite images of a road in the Yemeni port.
Hudaydah is a city in Yemen, not Saudi Arabia, and news reports from the time stated that strikes by Israel on its refinery and electricity infrastructure had sparked a huge blaze. We’ve seen no credible reports of the city being targeted in recent days.
There have been attacks on sites in Saudi Arabia by Iran, with damage confirmed at an oil refinery and the US embassy in Riyadh.
On 1 March AFP reported that Saudi Arabia intercepted Iranian missiles targeting Riyadh’s international airport and the Prince Sultan Airbase, which houses US military personnel, but the video being shared does not show this.
Misinformation can spread during conflict and crisis events, so it’s important to consider whether what you see on social media comes from a verifiable and trustworthy source before sharing. Our Full Fact toolkit can help you do this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because this footage is not recent and was filmed in Yemen, not Saudi Arabia.