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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

War & conflict fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about war & conflict. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

5,847 published reviews in this topic

dpaWar & conflict

Obama hat acht Jahr lang alle 20 Minuten lang Bomben abgeworfen. Trump hat niemals Bomben abgeworfen.

Publisher’s rating: Die USA haben auch unter Donald Trump bewaffnete Konflikte geführt und sogar stärker als unter Obama bewaffnete Drohnen eingesetzt. Die Angabe über die Bombenabwürfe während Obamas Amtszeit ist ungenau.

The review examines a Facebook graphic contrasting Barack Obama and Donald Trump: it claims Obama had bombs dropped every 20 minutes throughout his eight years in office, while Trump never did. The review says the post gives no source for the Obama figure. It identifies a possible origin for the statistic, but emphasizes that the figure refers to a single year, not Obama’s full presidency. [S1: “Über Obama heißt es im Facebook-Posting, er habe während seiner achtjährigen Amtszeit angeblich alle 20 Minuten Bomben abwerfen lassen. Eine Quelle für diese Zahl wird jedoch nicht genannt.”] The review also documents why the claim that Trump never used bombs is misleading. The United States remained involved in armed conflicts during his presidency, including the Afghanistan war, in which US forces had fought since 2001 and airstrikes were used. It also describes Trump’s order to kill Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone attack in Baghdad around the turn of 2019–2020. [S1: “Donald Trump übernahm mit seinem Amtsantritt im Jahr 2017 Verstrickungen in mehrere bewaffnete Konflikte, die die USA unter seinen Vorgängern begonnen und geführt hatten.”] The review further reports that Trump continued and expanded the drone-strike strategy used under Obama. It notes that armed drones can fire missiles as well as drop bombs. Taken together, this evidence contradicts the absolute claim that Trump never used bombs, while the Obama statistic is presented with a misleading timeframe. [S1: “Erhebungen von Investigativjournalisten zufolge wurden solche Programme unter Trump stark ausgebaut - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, dem Jemen und im Kampf gegen die Terrormiliz Al-Shabaab in Somalia.”]

Rumor ScannerWar & conflict

২৬৬ দিনের যুদ্ধে ত্রিশ লাখ মানে দৈনিক ১১,২৭৮ জন শহীদ হলেন। এরকম অসংখ্য শহীদের মাঝে একজনও আওয়ামীলীগের টপ সারির তো দূরের কথা থানা লেবেলের কোনো সভাপতি / সেক্রেটারিও খুঁজে পাওয়া যায় না….ক্যান।? অথচ কথায় কথায় বলা হয় আওয়ামীলীগ মুক্তিযুদ্ধের দল! তাহলে সত্য কোনটা?আওয়ামিলীগ দেশের জন্য যুদ্ধ করেছে- এইটা, নাকি শহীদ সংখ্যা ৩০ লক্ষ এইটা ?

Publisher’s rating: False

FACTLYWar & conflict

Picture of a Japanese child carrying his dead sister to a cremation ground during World War II

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

FACTLY examined a social-media post describing a photograph as showing a Japanese boy carrying his dead sister to a cremation ground during World War II. The post also attributed to the boy the words, “She’s not heavy, she’s my sister,” after a soldier supposedly asked him to discard her body. The review identifies the image as a photograph taken in Nagasaki after the 1945 US nuclear attack, but says it shows the boy carrying his deceased younger brother, not his sister: “The photo shows a Japanese boy standing in military posture and carrying his deceased younger brother on his back at a cremation ground in Nagasaki.” To check the image, the review reports conducting a reverse image search. It found the same photograph on the Rare Historical Photos website, whose caption describes “a Japanese boy standing at attention after having brought his dead younger brother to a cremation pyre, 1945.” The review says the image was reportedly taken by US Marine Corps photographer Joe O’ Donnel. This evidence supports the photograph’s setting and the sibling being carried, while contradicting the post’s identification of the child’s sibling as his sister. The review separately assesses the alleged exchange with a soldier. It recounts O’ Donnel’s description of the scene: men removed the rope holding the baby, placed the already-dead child on the fire, and the boy watched silently. The review says O’ Donnel “had never mentioned that the boy was asked to throw away his brother’s dead body,” and concludes there is “no conclusive evidence” for that conversation. Thus, the photograph is real, but the post’s account misidentifies the sibling and presents an unsupported dialogue as part of the event.