Does a video show an Iranian drone used during the country's attack against Israel stuck in power lines in Iraq? No, that's not true: The video, posted online as early as February 2024, predates Iran's April 13, 2024, attack against Israel. The video was most likely taken in Syria.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on April 14, 2024. The post included a video of a device caught in wires with a caption that read:
An Iranian drone became entangled in power lines in Iraq.
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This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Apr 15 20:09:39 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories used a Google Image search (archived here) to try to find the origin of the video. We found a post made on X on February 20, 2024, that included an image of the same video, with a caption that read:
Syria: photo of the day. An unidentified drone stuck in electric wires in Hasakah province.
Then, Lead Stories performed another Google Image search (archived here) of the exact image used in this earlier X post. A post made on Facebook on February 21, 2024, provided us with a potential location of where the video was taken. We used Google to search for the alleged location name and "drone" (archived here) and found a video posted on X on February 20, 2024, saying that the video was taken in a town between the Syrian cities of Al-Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor (also known as Dayr al-Zawr).
Unfortunately, when Lead Stories used Google to search for the town name, almost all of the results we saw were for an apricot beverage commonly consumed during Ramadan, not a town name (archived here). Using Google Image search again to attempt to locate the town did not include exact results (archived here). However, similarities in the landscape of the other pictures did indicate that the location was somewhere in Syria.
The specific location of the video notwithstanding, the fact that it was published in February 2024 means it could not show the events of April 2024.
The Iranian attacks against Israel began on April 13, 2024, sending hundreds of drones over the latter country (archived here).
Other Lead Stories fact checks related to the conflict between Iran and Israel can be found here.
