A video clip depicting an plane flying over a distant space whereas firing missiles was shared because the junta’s assault on ethnic rebels stronghold in Myanmar’s Rakhine state because the wartorn area struggles with starvation from battle and blockade.Nevertheless, a journalist who flimed the video informed AFP that it was filmed in northern Sri Lanka in 2009 which marked the tip of the nation’s a long time lengthy civil warfare.
“navy attacking AA base in Minbya. The video was posted by an AA soldier,” reads the caption of the Burmese-language Fb put up shared on July 25, 2025.
The video, which has been shared for greater than 400 occasions on Fb, exhibits a navy plane firing rockets and machine weapons right into a wooded space.
Screenshot taken on August 25, 2025 of the false put up with an X marked by AFP
The Arakan Military (AA) are an ethnic minority insurgent group battling Myanmar’s ruling junta in western Rakhine state and now management 14 of the 17 key cities within the state.
The area has emerged as a key entrance in Myanmar’s extremely fractured civil warfare, pitching a myriad of ethnic minority rebels and pro-democracy fighters towards the junta that seized energy in a 2021 coup (archived hyperlink).
The UN had warned in August, 2025 that the area’s greater than 2 million residents face immenient hazard of starvation from the battle and aids reduce by the US authorities (archived hyperlink).
The video circulated on-line with the identical declare on a number of Fb put up because the junta’s forces recaptured keys cities below the managed of rebels group in different a part of the nation (archived hyperlink).
Nevertheless, the video is at the very least greater than a decade previous and was filmed through the Sri Lanka civil warfare in 2009.
Reverse picture search of one of many keyframes from the video on Google discovered the identical clip in an extended YouTube video shared on January 25, 2025. “SL Military entered Chalai and Tiger’s boasts,” reads the title in Sinhala language (archived hyperlink).
Screenshot comparability of the video from the false put up (L) to the YouTube video
Sri Lankan journalist, Amal Samantha, shared the video on his YouTube channel the place he archives his earlier work and will be seen chatting with the digital camera at 1:37 minute mark within the video (archived hyperlink).
“That is my video. Sri Lanka Air pressure MI 24 Helicopter Gunship assaults LTTE terrorist bunker line in northern Sri Lanka in warfare interval 2009,” he informed AFP in an e mail on August 19, 2025.
Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil warfare killed about 100,000 individuals and set growth again by a long time, ending solely after the Tamil rebels preventing for autonomy have been massacred in 2009. The operation was condemned internationally for the indiscriminate bombardment of civilians (archived hyperlink).
AFP has beforehand debunked misinformation associated to Myanmar unrest right here.
