Does a video show "Turkish commandos" swearing to hunt down "USA/Israel's terrorists" in December 2024? No, that's not true: Lead Stories Turkish-speaking staff confirmed that the uniformed people shown in the footage did not mention the U.S. or Israel. The video was recorded in March 2023 following an earthquake in Hatay, Turkey, and shows personnel chanting what appear to be morale-boosting slogans.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X published on December 25, 2024, with a caption that read:
Turkish commandos swear to hunt USA/Israel's terrorists! 🔥
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Dec 27 18:38:15 2024 UTC)
The video showed people wearing uniforms and chanting as they were lined up between a stage and tent encampment. In the background, between the tents and the uniformed personnel, several individuals who seemed to be children were seen running back and forth.
Lead Stories Turkish-speaking staff translated the audible portion of the chanting, which said:
I do not know any barriers, I am everywhere, I'm at sea, on land, in the air, I am a Turkish commando.
At no point did the video mention any specific geographic location or nationality.
The clip contained another location clue indicating where it was recorded. An inscription on the white box with a black circle on the right side of the frame read "Vestel." Vestel (archived here) is a Turkish manufacturing business that operates in "electronics, home appliances, digital products, and mobility electronics," according to its website. A cropped, close-up version of that logo is shown below:
(Source: X screenshot taken Fri Dec 27 22:01:01 2024 UTC)
Reverse image searches led to similar recordings capturing the same scene from different angles, shown here (archived here), here (archived here) and here (archived here).
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Fri Dec 27 21:43:03 2024 UTC; automatically translated to English by Chrome )
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Fri Dec 27 21:44:13 2024 UTC; automatically translated to English by Chrome)
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Fri Dec 27 21:25:38 2024 UTC; automatically translated to English by Chrome)
Those clips were published on March 9 and March 10, 2023. Their titles described the chanting as "Commando March" and mentioned the Turkish province of Hatay, which had experienced a devastating earthquake in February 2023, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
As geolocated by Lead Stories, the exact spot seen in all clips is this place (archived here) in Kirikhan, Hatay. The same characteristic green structure also appeared at the 00:28 mark in a March 13, 2023, EuroNews report (archived here), mentioning a tent city built there in the aftermath of the earthquake.
In early March 2023, Turkish state news agency Anadoly reported (archived here) that military units sang the "Commando March" as they concluded earthquake-related duties in the Hatay Province of Turkey. According to the outlet:
The soldiers, who have been performing tasks such as search and rescue, security, setting up tents, distributing food in soup kitchens and taking care of students in the district since the day the earthquake occurred, were applauded for a long time by the citizens as they marched through the streets.
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