Did U.S. Armed Forces recently conduct airstrikes targeting Iran-backed paramilitary forces in Iraq? No, that's not true. Posts circulating on social media use footage of old airstrikes in Iraq.
The claim appeared in many posts such as this video (archived here) published on TikTok on August 20, 2023, under the title "Breaking: American Aerial Bombardment targeting the PMU forces near the Syrian-Iraqi border."
The video carries an overlay text in Arabic, which reads:
Breaking Breaking Now, American aerial bombardment targeting PMU forces near the Syrian-Iraqi border, several members of PMU were martyred.
(Translation from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff).
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue August 22, 15:42:57 2023 UTC)
The post is misleading and uses old footage of the U.S.-led coalition airstrike targeting an ISIS convoy in Falluja. The original video was published on YouTube on June 22, 2017.
The same false claim appears in another TikTok post (archived here) using different old footage that shows a U.S. airstrike targeting Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Units in Anbar Province. However, the video is from three years ago and offers a U.S. airstrike targeting Iran-backed militias. The original video was published on March 12, 2020.
There have been several rumors and misinformation circulating on social media in Iraq, claiming that the United States is leading a military operation to change the political regime in Baghdad and install an anti-Iran, pro-West Iraqi government.
