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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.

5,848 published reviews in this topic

The QuintWar & conflict

2 Terrorists Holed up in Ambaji Temple in Gujarat. One killed and the other held

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim attached to the video was that a terrorist had been shot by Gujarat police inside Ambaji Temple and another had been arrested. The Quint’s investigation says the footage is real, but that it does not show a live terrorist incident: it shows a police mock drill held at the temple in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In the drill, police acted out killing one terrorist and arresting another, which accounts for the dramatic scene in the video. To trace the footage, the investigation broke it into keyframes using the Invid Google Chrome extension and found a YouTube video identifying it as a mock drill. The Quint also searched YouTube and found a news bulletin reporting the same event. The review cites Dainik Bhaskar’s report that Banaskantha district police organised the exercise at Ambaji Temple and that it lasted an hour. It further says that police, bomb-squad personnel and the Quick Response Team took part, and that the bulletin quoted police saying the men were disguised as terrorists. The misleading post therefore used genuine footage but presented a staged exercise as an actual terrorist attack. The review places the drill four months before the video was circulated with the claim; it does not provide a specific date for the drill.

Donald TrumpWar & conflict

“Look what has happened to Iran. Iran, when I first came into office, was a terror. They were fighting in many locations all over the Middle East. They were behind every single major attack, whether it was Syria, whether it was Yemen, whether it was individual smaller areas, whether it was taking away oil from people. They were involved with everything. Now they’re pulling back because they’re got serious economic problems.”

Publisher’s rating: Three Pinocchios

NewtralWar & conflict

The New York Times ha dicho que los atentados del 17-A fueron una operación de Estado contra Cataluña

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerned a message asserting that The New York Times had described the 17 August attacks in Catalonia as an act by the Spanish state against Catalonia. Newtral says it contacted the paper’s Madrid correspondent, Raphael Minder, who told it that neither the newspaper nor journalist Rukmini Callimachi had made that assertion. The article therefore distinguishes the sweeping claim about state responsibility from a separate, narrower issue raised by Callimachi: the timing and recipient of a police phone call before the attack.

The QuintWar & conflict

Clothing of the victims of the bomb blast in Katuwapitiya in the church in Sri Lanka on 14 April on chair

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a photograph said to show clothes belonging to victims of the 14 April bombing at the church in Katuwapitiya, Sri Lanka. The review identifies the viral post’s wording and reports that the image was instead an art installation featured in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2012. To investigate the image’s origin, the review says it used Yandex for a reverse image search and found the same photograph in a Medium blog post. A watermark beneath the image read “LOS CARPINTEROS (Cuban Art Group).” The review then reports finding the group’s official website, which placed the installation in Basel in 2012, and coverage of the event in The Hindu. The review describes the artwork as showing “150 invisible people” in a church. That account identifies the photograph as documentation of an earlier art installation, rather than clothing from the 2019 Sri Lanka bombing. The excerpt does not provide further details about the installation or the image’s original date beyond its association with the Basel event in 2012.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturWar & conflict

Unter der Überschrift «Von wegen Europa ist sicher!» werden mehrere Filmaufnahmen von gewalttätigen Männern auf Facebook verbreitet. Im Begleittext heißt es: «Sie wollen einen Bürgerkrieg heraufbeschwören und diese Söldner sind genau für das hier bezahlt.» Offenbar ist sich die Facebook-Userin jedoch nicht ganz sicher, was für Videomaterial sie verbreitet: «Ich korrigiere mich erneut die Videos sind aus Frankreich (2Vid), Israel (1Vid) und Deutschland (1Vid).»

Publisher’s rating: Die drei Videos, auf denen mehrere Personen zu sehen sind, zeigen Proteste in Israel.