Fact check: False claims on Syria war go viral

Social media has seen a surge of posts in the aftermath of the surprise offensive against the government forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, launched by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. DW Fact Check analyzed the most viral ones.

Bomb attacks on rebel positions?

Claim: As government forces were dropping bombs on rebel fighters in the Aleppo area, posts on social media claimed that a photo showed a helicopter releasing bombs. "SAA currently dropping barrel bombs on advancing Al Nusra units in the Aleppo area," this post reads, using the former name of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebel group. The photo has been used in other social media posts, linking it to the current attacks. 

DW Fact check: Misleading.

Though the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Russian and regime forces had launched dozens of airstrikes targeting different positions in Idlib and the Aleppo countryside, the photo is unrelated to current clashes.

A reverse image search shows that the photo was taken on April 24, 2018, and can be traced back to the database of the picture agency Getty Images. Rami al Sayed took it for the international news agency AFP. The caption details that an MI24 helicopter dropped bombs over southern Damascus in the area of the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp. 

Russian military jets seized?

Another image that has gone viral on X allegedly shows functioning Russian military jets taken over by Syrian rebels at the Kuweires airbase, east of Aleppo.

Claim: "The Syrian opposition took over Kuweires military airbase putting their hands on five functioning operating Russian military jets," reads the post on X, which has been shared half a million times.

DW Fact check: False.

The image doesn't show the Syrian opposition taking over the airbase and getting their hands on functioning Russian military jets. 

What the image shows are Syrian air force jets at the Kuweires military airbase, east of Aleppo. A reverse image search reveals that the image is from November 11, 2015. The Syrian army had broken through a year-long ISIS siege of the Aleppo airbase. It was their first major breakthrough since Russia's air campaign had begun. 

It was also published on DW in 2015  and can be found via the picture agency Getty Images. The photographer is George Ourfalian and the photo was taken for AFP. 

The only claim in the tweet that has some validity is that the opposition in Syria has indeed taken over Kuweires airbase. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, rebels have taken over several towns, including the Kuweires military airbase in the eastern countryside of Aleppo after heavy clashes with Syrian government forces.

Several media reports indicate that the Syrian rebels have overrun Aleppo and seized power plants and military bases. 

Heavy shelling at night on positions of rebel groups?

Claim: This video, posted on November 28 on X, appears to depict heavy shelling at night. The caption says: "#BREAKING: Rocket attacks by the Syrian Arab Army in western Aleppo hitting HTS positions." Other accounts have also posted it.

DW Fact check: False.

The video does not show scenes of the current rebel offensive in Aleppo. It is actually several years old and shows the Turkish Armed Forces striking Syrian regime forces with howitzers and mortar shells in 2020. With a reverse image search, we were able to find the same video in posts from 2020 on Facebook, on Youtube and on X. It also appears on this Turkish news website.

YPG flag hoisted at Aleppo International Airport?

Claim: An image of Aleppo airport has recently been shared on several platforms and in different languages, sometimes in connection with the claim that the rebels have captured the airport, sometimes in connection with the statement that it is under Kurdish control. In the image, the flag of the Kurdish militia YPG is hoisted at the airport, in the foreground we see a soldier.

DW Fact check: Fake.

The widely shared image has been manipulated. The YPG flag on the roof and the person in the foreground have been photoshopped into it. A reverse image search shows that a "clean version" of the image appeared years ago in the Shutterstock image database and the Imago photo agency. It can be seen here:

According to Shutterstock and Imago, the photo of the Aleppo International Airport was taken on December 8, 2017. We have superimposed the agency photo and the version from the X posts. This confirms that it is in fact exactly the same image.

And we can find both, the exact flag and the exact person, elsewhere on the internet if we cut them out and enter them in a reverse image search. The flag is from the Reuters news agency and the person accompanies a two-year-old song on Soundcloud. So, these elements were taken and placed on the airport image using a picture-editing program.

And what about the actual situation at Aleppo airport? According to news agencies the rebels said on November 30 that they control it now. As mentioned above, this is also stated in some of the posts with the manipulated image, although the YPG flag in the image would contradict that if it were real.

Mohamed Othman Farhan and Andreas Wisskirchen contributed to this report.

Edited by: Rachel Baig