Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We’ve spent today working to separate the real from the fictitious as pictures and video flood social media following three days of strikes across Iran, Israel and several Gulf nations.

Here’s some of the fakery spreading on social media that we’ve debunked:

• An image claiming to be of a huge explosion at an Iraqi airport was made using AI
• Google Earth satellite images that were manipulated to claim damage to a US Navy base
• Fake social media accounts claiming to belong to senior Iranian cleric

The team has also been verifying real footage to feed into coverage across BBC News:

• Clips showing US fighter jets that were shot down over Kuwait in “an apparent friendly fire” incident
• Footage showing a fire burning at an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia following a drone attack
• Video of smoke rising over a French naval base in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi

Our team is working through the evening verifying material from the conflict.

BBC Verify Live will be back tomorrow.

Barbara Metzler
BBC Verify senior data scientist

Satellite images captured today show damage at an Iranian naval port on the Strait of Hormuz, near the city of Bandar Abbas.

In the imagery, at least one vessel appears to have sustained damage, with dark smoke rising from it.

At about 230m (750ft) in length, it is among the larger ships typically seen at the port in southern Iran and has visual characteristics matching a Makran-class forward base ship operated by the Iranian Navy.

Separate satellite data from Nasa’s FIRMS system, which detects unusually high heat and is used to track fires, recorded heat detections at several points across the port yesterday evening, including one near the damaged vessel.

FIRMS also registered another heat detection in the northern part of the port, but the presence of thick, dark smoke in available imagery has made it difficult to assess the full extent of the damage.

Image source, NASA

Ghoncheh Habibiazad and Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Persian and BBC Verify

For a third day, we’ve seen smoke rising over Tehran as the US and Israel continue to strike Iran.

One clip, filmed beside the distinctive main building of the University of Science and Technology, shows thick smoke rising hundreds of feet into the air from Tehran’s Punak neighbourhood.

Image source, Telegram

Another clip shows damage to buildings in the Narmak neighbourhood of west Tehran. The video was shared by an Iranian news agency, claiming it was the result of a US air strike.

Image source, Instagram

We’ve also verified a video of Tehran’s skyline which shows at least 11 clouds of smoke or dust across the city.

Each of these clips were reverse-searched to check if they were new as we have seen several videos which have emerged today that were likely to have been filmed at the weekend.

Kayleen Devlin and Anthony Reuben
BBC Verify

Shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz - a key transit route which lies between Iran and the Gulf states - has fallen dramatically in the past few days as a result of the US-Israel war with Iran.

In normal times, around 20 million barrels of oil pass through the strait each day - around a quarter of global daily maritime oil flows.

Ioannis Papadimitriou, lead freight analyst at Vortexa - a maritime intelligence firm - told BBC Verify that tanker transits through the Strait of Hormuz have fallen by more than 80% compared with pre-escalation levels.

And the ship-tracking website Marine Traffic shows a marked reduction in activity over the last few days.

In the graphic above the red arrows represent tankers while the green arrows are cargo vessels.

“The situation is moving quickly and remains uncertain,” said Papadimitriou.

“What we understand at this stage is that several major maritime insurers have given notice that they intend to cancel their war risk cover from 5 March as some underwriters are stepping back due to the heightened risk.”

Alex Murray
BBC Verify journalist

Satellite imagery of a US naval base in Bahrain and an air base in Kuwait used by the US show both facilities have been struck several times in Iranian attacks.

New images of Ali al-Salem air base in Kuwait show two aircraft shelters have been destroyed and two others were damaged in recent strikes.

There is also a damaged area near the base’s southern runway which may be the result of an explosion. Other buildings in the south of the base also appear to have been hit.

Images of the naval base in Bahrain show two large radomes - white ball-shaped structures that house radar dishes and communications equipment - have been destroyed.

Part of a large warehouse has also been severely damaged.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

After Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an air strike on Saturday his duties have been taken up by a temporary three-member council.

Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian, Judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei and conservative cleric Ayatollah Alireza Arafi were named as its members over the weekend.

Since then at least two X accounts in Arafi’s name have been created. I used the platform’s transparency tool to check when they were set up and both were created on the same day his appointment was announced.

These accounts have shared a large number of unverified, false and AI-generated material in the last few days.

One of the claimed Arafi accounts, as you can see below, has a blue tick which back when X was Twitter used to mark out government accounts and verified public figures. Now it is a paid-for feature accessible to all users.

Arafi is not thought to have his own official X account.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

We report on AI-generated images and videos almost every day at BBC Verify. Fake and manipulated content is becoming increasingly sophisticated so it's more difficult than ever to separate it from what is real.

But how do we know when something is AI-generated? Here's four methods we use to identify the fakes.

Sarah Jalali
BBC Monitoring

We’ve been looking into claims being made online that an air base in Turkey which is used by US forces was attacked earlier today.

The claim is being backed up by a video clip showing a Turkish TV news correspondent walking out of a building before explosions are seen and heard a short distance away.

However, the original video was posted on the correspondent’s own Instagram account on 9 January, external showing him reporting from Syria.

Turkey’s Centre for Combating Disinformation has also rejected the claims, describing them as unfounded. In a statement, it said there are “no military bases” in the country that belong to any foreign state.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

We’re keen to hear what you think the BBC Verify team should be looking into.

We're interested in investigating claims you may've seen online in your social feeds. We're also keen to know if you've think an image may have been made using artificial intelligence to spread disinformation.

You can also get in touch with BBC Verify if you've got a question about how we verify video posted online or work with satellite imagery.

You can send your suggestions to the team here.

Kumar Malhotra and Daniele Palumbo
BBC Verify

The US military has confirmed that three of its F-15 fighter jets came down over Kuwait on 1 March in what it said was, external , external“an, external apparent friendly fire” incident, external.

We have verified footage of an F-15 spinning towards the ground with what appears to be a fire coming from the rear of its fuselage. We have confirmed it came down in an area just west of Kuwait City.

A large communications tower visible in the foreground of the footage and two electricity pylons helped us find the location.

In another video, people can be seen filming what appears to be one of the crew who ejected from one of the aircraft - a used parachute can be seen lying on the ground. We were able to match fences, buildings, and streetlights seen in the video with Google Earth imagery.

We also checked and confirmed both videos had not appeared on the internet before today.

The US military’s Central Command said in a statement that an investigation is under way. Six crew from all three jets have been recovered and are in a “stable condition”, according to the statement.

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Several posts claiming to show two UK MPs participating in a one-minute silence to mark the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have drawn millions of views on X.

But these claims are false. They use photos of the MPs taken before Khamenei was killed at the weekend and there’s no evidence either politician did this.

One post from yesterday, external shows a picture of UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood wearing a headscarf while talking to a group of Muslim men. The text says she “joined her constituents to hold a one-minute silence for Ayatollah Khamenei today in Birmingham”.

A simple reverse search of this image using Google shows it was taken in September 2024 when Mahmood visited Southport Mosque following riots that summer. She posted about the visit on her own website, external.

Another X post, external shows newly elected Green Party MP Hannah Spencer standing with a group of men in front of an Islamic centre. The post says Spencer “joined locals in Gorton and Denton for a minute's silence honouring the fallen ayatollah”.

The image used was originally posted by Spencer six days ago on her Instagram account, external when she joined local Muslims for Iftar - the meal taken after breaking the Ramadan fast.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

An image claiming to show damage to a US naval base in Qatar as seen from space is an AI fake, based on an old satellite image from a different place.

The image, posted on X by Iran’s state-aligned Tehran Times and shared widely online over the weekend, claims it shows destroyed US radar equipment in Qatar.

The fake picture of damage appears to be based on real satellite imagery of a US base in Bahrain from February 2025, which is publicly available on Google Maps and Google Earth.

The before and after image was generated or edited with Google AI, according to Google’s SynthID watermark detector.

We can also see discrepancies in the roof of the building at the bottom of the so-called “after” picture compared with the original satellite image. We can also see three vehicles parked in the exact same spaces in both the genuine satellite imagery and the AI picture - despite the pictures allegedly having been taken a year apart.

We have verified multiple videos showing strikes on the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain on Saturday.

A senior Bahraini official told BBC News the base was struck on Saturday evening by an Iranian drone that caused a major fire.

The drone impacted right next to the UK naval facility that adjoins the US area but there were no casualties as the area had been evacuated, the official added.

Emma Pengelly and Daniele Palumbo
BBC Verify

We’ve verified footage showing the aftermath of a reported Iranian drone attack on a French naval base in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), on Sunday.

One video begins with smoke billowing from the area of Zayed Port, followed by a large explosion nearby and debris being thrown into the air. A photograph shows thick black smoke rising from the same location.

Image source, X

We’ve checked and confirmed the images were first posted online on Sunday.

French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin said a hangar at the French naval base had been hit in a drone attack at the port of Abu Dhabi. No injuries were reported, she said.

Earlier on Sunday the UAE’s Ministry of Defence said two Iranian drones targeted a warehouse at al-Salam naval base in Abu Dhabi causing two fires.

Emma Pengelly
BBC Verify journalist

Verified video shows a fire burning at an oil refinery in eastern Saudi Arabia after a drone attack this morning.The clip is filmed from a moving vehicle and shows a thick smoke cloud billowing across the site.

We’ve confirmed the footage was filmed at the Ras Tanura refinery by matching pipes and structures on the site to recent satellite images. The site is operated by Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco.

Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said it intercepted and destroyed two drones at the facility, adding that a “limited fire” was caused by falling debris. It also said there have been no civilian casualties.

The country’s energy ministry has said “operational units at the refinery were shut down as a precautionary measure”, but there had been no impact on the “supply of petroleum products to local markets”.

Image source, X

Thomas Copeland and Joshua Cheetham
BBC Verify

An image claiming to show a huge explosion at a US military base in Iraq has been manipulated using AI. The AI fake appears to be based on a real picture we’ve verified, first shared online on Sunday, showing a cloud of smoke rising over the international airport in Irbil.

Drones have been targeting a US base near the airport in the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region since Saturday.

I’ve checked the image using Google’s SynthID watermark detector, which found it was generated or edited with Google AI.

There are also visual inconsistencies in the fake image, including the unrealistic fireball and unusually shaped structures on the right-hand side which do not appear in recent photographs taken at this location.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

BBC Verify has been tracking, verifying and mapping attacks in Iran and across the Middle East since the first air strikes by the US and Israel were reported on Saturday. We’ll bring you more of what we’ve verified today here on BBC Verify Live.

As well as providing BBC News with real, verified, material from the conflict we’re also looking into widespread sharing of disinformation on social media.

We’re seeing what appear to be AI-generated images claiming to show real attacks and damage as well as old material from previous wars being passed off as new.

We’ll take you through some examples of what’s being shared and explain why sometimes what you see online isn’t always what it claims to be.

BBC Verify is also assessing the ongoing risks to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz through which around 20% of the world's oil passes. Three vessels were attacked near the strait yesterday and ships have been warned not to attempt to transit the key route.

More on all those to come throughout the day.