PeakMetrics / Fact Checks
War & conflict fact checks
Explore claims publishers have checked about war & conflict. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.
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Search by text or image5,848 published reviews in this topic
Claim this is the recent skirmish between India and China
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
Hay que defender al Estado Islámico
Publisher’s rating: Falso
The claim attributes to María Luisa Carcedo, then the PSOE’s secretary for Social Welfare, a statement that progressives should defend the Islamic State because the right had criminalized it, and blames Aznar and Franco. Newtral says Carcedo never made that statement. It describes the circulating text as built around alleged remarks from an unspecified August 2014 event, while noting that the versions circulating online did not identify the event, its purpose, its date, or its attendees. The review contrasts the invented quotation with the remarks it found Carcedo actually made about Iraq. Newtral reports that on August 15 she gave EFE her personal view that Iraq’s situation and the Islamic State’s advance were a direct consequence of the Azores meeting and the destruction of the country. It says she characterized the Iraq war as having set the country back and left it vulnerable to jihadism; this criticism of the war and its consequences is not an expression of support for the Islamic State. Newtral also notes a second fabricated version that attributes to Carcedo a claim that children being beheaded in Iraq was Aznar’s fault, not Islam’s. The review says that version also twists her remarks about the Azores. It reports that the fake had circulated at least since September 2018 and had previously been debunked on laSexta’s El Objetivo. The review’s account therefore distinguishes the false attributions from the Iraq-related criticism it says Carcedo actually expressed.
Das deutsche Schiff «Wilhelm Gustloff» wurde am 30. Januar 1945 von einem sowjetischen U-Boot in der Ostsee versenkt. In einem Post wird behauptet, dass kein «Vertreter der Bundesrepublik» jemals der Menschen gedacht habe, die dabei ums Leben kamen.
Publisher’s rating: Es hat offizielle Gedenkfeiern an Jahrestagen des Untergangs der «Wilhelm Gustloff» gegeben. Darüber hinaus wurde im Bundestag an die Opfer erinnert. Zudem gibt es offizielle Gedenktage für die Opfer von Flucht und Vertreibung.
The post makes an absolute claim: that no representative of the Federal Republic had ever commemorated the people killed when the Wilhelm Gustloff sank. The review tests that claim against documented commemorations, including ceremonies on the sinking’s anniversaries and a Bundestag statement that explicitly named the ship. The evidence it reports provides counterexamples to the claim. At a ceremony marking the sinking’s 40th anniversary, Schleswig-Holstein’s then social affairs minister, Ursula Gräfin von Brockdorff, attended on behalf of the state government. The review quotes her warning that tragedies like the Gustloff must never happen again. At the 50th anniversary commemoration, the guests included Ute Erdsiek-Rave, then president of the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament. These reported appearances directly contradict the assertion that no public representative ever commemorated the dead. The review also points to a federal-level example. In a government statement to the Bundestag on June 1, 1995, then Chancellor Helmut Kohl addressed wartime flight and expulsion and expressly recalled the Wilhelm Gustloff’s sinking. Separately, the review says the Bundestag’s annual Remembrance Day commemoration includes victims of flight and expulsion, and that June 20 has been an official day of remembrance for those victims since 2015. Together, the specific anniversary ceremonies and Kohl’s parliamentary reference refute the post’s categorical wording; the broader commemorations provide further context.
Drone attacks have set alight two major oil facilities run by the state-owned company Aramco in Saudi Arabia
Publisher’s rating: True
Indian Army thrashing Muslims in Kashmir.
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
The claim concerns a circulated video said to show Indian Army personnel beating Kashmiri Muslims. FACTLY reports that the footage instead depicts Pakistan Army personnel abusing Taliban suspects in Pakistan, so it does not establish the alleged incident in Kashmir. The review’s conclusion addresses the identity of the video, not whether unrelated abuses occurred.
There has been a clash between the police and the army personnel in Assam on the issue of the NRC list
Publisher’s rating: False
The claim concerns a video said to show Assam police and Indian Army personnel clashing over Assam’s recently released National Register of Citizens (NRC) list. The review says it examined the circulating video and traced it to an earlier incident in Delhi, rather than an NRC-related event in Assam. It identifies a News Nation logo in the video and reports that a viewer can be heard asking, “what happened in Delhi?” The review describes searching for reports using the terms “army police clash Delhi news nation.” It says this led to a News Nation video dated 26 February 2017, titled as a clash between army personnel and police in Delhi’s cantonment area. It also cites a Times of India report aired the following day, which described a two-hour clash there after a police officer allegedly insulted an army soldier. On that basis, the review identifies the circulated footage as an old video of a clash between the Indian Army and Delhi police in Delhi’s cantonment area, not footage of an Assam clash over the NRC. The review’s conclusion addresses the video’s attribution; the excerpt does not independently establish other details about the NRC list.
Injured Kashmiri girl bleeding with blood
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
The claim examined is that an image of a girl with a bleeding head depicts an injured Kashmiri girl. FACTLY says it checked the image using Google reverse image search and found the same image in an article published by Jafariya News about Ashura, a Muharram ritual. The review reports that Jafariya News identified the girl as Lebanese and said she took part in the ritual in 2005. On that basis, the image was misrepresented as showing an injured Kashmiri girl; the review concludes that the claim is false.
Claim 4 district level BJP workers were caught by army for putting up ISIS posters
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
"I was looking out of a window from a building in Midtown Manhattan directly at the World Trade Center when I saw a second plane at a tremendous speed go into the second tower."
Publisher’s rating: Not the Whole Story
Claim: Indian Army murdered Kashmir children
Publisher’s rating: Fact Crescendo Rating: False
An old man in Kashmir is unable to bury his son’s dead body for two days
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
The claim concerned a video shared as showing a 90-year-old man in Kashmir unable to bury his son for two days because of conditions there. FACTLY’s investigation identified the video as showing a different setting and event: a father in Syria with his son, who had been killed in Russian airstrikes. The review therefore found that the video did not establish the claimed Kashmir circumstances. [S1: “The claim that is going viral with the video is that it shows the pathetic situation of a 90-year old man who is unable to bury his son’s dead body since two days due to the existing conditions in Kashmir.”] [S1: “Video is from Syria and it shows a father looking at his dead son who was killed in the attacks of the Russian Air Force.”] The review describes how it examined the video: it used the InVid plugin to extract keyframes, then subjected those frames to reverse-image searches. FACTLY says the resulting search results identified the footage as showing an old man looking at his son killed in Russian airstrikes in Syria. [S1: “When the video in the post was run through ‘InVid’ plugin, several keyframes of it were obtained. On subjecting these keyframes to reverse image search, many search results were obtained which make it clear that the video is of an old man looking at his son killed during the Russian airstrikes in Syria.”] As further provenance, FACTLY reports that the Ukrainian news agency Apostrophe had published an article with the same video, describing a 90-year-old father saying goodbye to his son. The review also says a Ukrainian newspaper, 112, reported on Russian Air Force attacks in Syria. These details support the review’s identification of the footage as Syrian rather than evidence of the claimed event in Kashmir. [S1: “a Ukranian news agency “Apostrophe” has published an article with the same video that was posted on Facebook.”] [S1: “From the article, it was found that nine civilians were killed and 20 were injured in Syria due to the attacks of the Russian Air Force.”] [S1: “And, the video is that of a 90-year-old father saying goodbye to his son, who was killed during those attacks.”]
Vídeo de un intento de atentado en Argelia
Publisher’s rating: Falso
The claim concerns a video presented as showing a pilot foiling an attempted attack in Algeria. The review describes the clip as showing a plane avoiding a collision with a tanker truck and says it circulated with a message claiming that the pilot’s skill had prevented an attack. It identifies the footage not as a real incident, but as imagery from the video game GTA V. The review explains that it used reverse image search on the images circulating on Twitter. That search led to a video posted by a YouTube channel specializing in Grand Theft Auto 5 gameplay. The review also says the clip had been shared in multiple languages and that the post which helped popularize it was published on July 5 by Khurram Nawaz Gandapur, identified as secretary general of Pakistan’s Awami Tehreek party; the post was later deleted. These details support the review’s conclusion that the video was game footage presented as a real event, rather than evidence of an attempted attack in Algeria.
Claim 29th day of Kashmir shutdown present condition of people
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
Claim women and kids are being tortured in Kashmir
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
