Does a photo on social media show an attack on a U.S. military base in Baghdad? No, that's not true: The scene in the picture is of a fire in 2011 at a facility in New Jersey. There is no evidence that an explosion occurred at a U.S. military base in Baghdad in September 2024.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on September 30, 2024. The caption of the post read:
BREAKING: US military base comes under attack in Baghdad
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Sat Oct 5 20:53 2024 UTC)
The image was taken in New Jersey in 2011
To find the origin of the image that appeared in the post on X, Lead Stories did a reverse image search for the image on TinEye (archived here). One of the results led to an article titled, "Alpha haz-mat fire prompts warning to residents near former Spectra Gases at 80 Industrial Drive" (archived here). It was published on April 27, 2011, by The Express-Times, a media outlet based in eastern Pennsylvania whose digital work appears on the website Lehigh Valley Live. The article detailed a fire at a former gas facility in nearby Alpha, New Jersey. A follow-up article (archived here) stated that there were no casualties at the fire scene.
The image was credited to Tim Wynkoop, who was listed as a photographer for The Express-Times (archived here). A screenshot of the article is included below:
(Source: LehighValleyLive.com screenshot taken on Mon Oct 7 18:38:21 2024 UTC)
No explosion at US military base 'in Baghdad'
The claim did not specify the location that it meant within Baghdad. At the time of the writing of this fact check, the U.S. Defense Department's information website, Military OneSource (archived here), listed no full-fledged U.S. military installations in Iraq at all.
However, Reuters (archived here) reported rockets were launched on September 30, 2024, the date the claim was posted on X, near Baghdad International Airport and landed near other Iraqi facilities. U.S. troops are hosted at Baghdad International Airport, but the airport is not an official U.S. military base.
Lead Stories contacted U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, about the claim and will update this fact check with any relevant response.
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Lead Stories has debunked several claims related to Baghdad that can be found here.
