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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

FACTLYWar & conflict

The plane shown in the image is an Indian plane shot down by the Pakistan defense forces

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY examined a Facebook image being shared with the title “Indian plane shot down.” Its review says the aircraft was a MiG-27 that crashed in Jodhpur in 2016, not a plane shot down by Pakistan’s defense forces. The claim therefore misrepresents both the aircraft’s fate and the incident depicted. The review describes checking the aircraft number visible in the image—TU657—by searching for it online. That search led to an NDTV Twitter post about a plane crash. FACTLY reports that the post identified the aircraft as a MiG-27 that crashed in Jodhpur and said its pilots were alive. FACTLY also points to the timestamp of that post as evidence that the crash was in 2016, placing the image in an earlier incident rather than the recent conflict referenced in the claim. It concludes that the Facebook image was taken at the 2016 crash.

FACTLYWar & conflict

Photos of dead bodies of terrorists and building debris due to IAF strike on JeM training camp at Balakot

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined photos circulating on Facebook that were presented as showing dead terrorists and building debris caused by the Indian Air Force strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed training camp at Balakot. It reports that the images were not from that strike: they were captured after an earthquake in 2005 in Azad Kashmir and northern Pakistan. To check the images, the publisher says it conducted reverse image searches. It reports that those searches led to the identification of the pictures as earthquake aftermath images, and that original versions could also be found on Getty Images. This image provenance is the central evidence offered against the claim that the photos document the Balakot strike. The review further says the 2005 earthquake reportedly killed about 80,000 people and injured about 100,000. Those figures are part of the review’s account of the earthquake context; the excerpt does not provide a separate source or additional details for them. Its conclusion about the photos rests on their identification as images from that earlier disaster, rather than evidence that they depict casualties or damage from the claimed airstrike.

BBC HindiWar & conflict

Pakistan says that it shot down two Indian Air Force jets on Wednesday in response to India’s airstrike inside Pakistan in the early hours of Tuesday. After Pakistani army confirmed the airstrike, hashtags like #Pakistaniarmyzindabad, #Pakistanairforceourpride and #Pakistanstrikesback started to trend in the country. Almost all Pakistani TV channels and websites started giving wall-to-wall coverage to the alleged airstrike. But many pictures and videos that were being shared as a proof of destroyed Indian jets are fake.

Publisher’s rating: Old photos, fake claims

FACTLYWar & conflict

The video shows the Indian Air Force attack carried out on POK.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY examined a Facebook video being shared as footage of an Indian Air Force attack on Pakistan, specifically an attack carried out on POK. The review’s finding was that the clip was not attack footage: it identified the video as gameplay. Its account describes tracing the shared clip back to a previously posted YouTube video, rather than verifying the claimed attack from the images themselves. [S1: “A video is being shared as the Indian Air Force attack on Pakistan by many pages on Facebook.”; “The video posted is a game video.”] To investigate, FACTLY says it divided the Facebook video into frames using InVID and ran a Google Reverse Image Search on those frames. The search located a similar YouTube video that had been posted four years earlier. The review reports that this was a game video whose initial titles had been removed before it was reposted as Indian Air Force attack footage. [S1: “When the video posted on Facebook is divided into frames using Invid software and a Google Reverse Image Search on the frames is done, a similar YouTube video posted four years back can be found.”; “The video found is a game video from which the initial titles are removed and posted on Facebook as Indian Air Force attack video.”] The review also says that searching YouTube for “Taliban US Apache Simulator” leads to the original video. Together, the earlier YouTube match and the reported gameplay provenance support the conclusion that the Facebook clip was misrepresented, not footage of the claimed air attack. The supplied excerpt does not provide the original video’s URL or further details about the game. [S1: “Also, a YouTube search with keywords ‘Taliban US Apache Simulator’ can lead to the original video posted on YouTube.”; “Finally, the video posted on Facebook as Indian Air Force attack video is actually a game video.”]