As the US and UK launch strikes against Houthis in Yemen after Red Sea shipping attacks, social media is being flooded with various false news and misinformation. We stumbled upon one such image which has gone viral on the social media site X(Twitter) depicting a view of a massive fire with a huge plume of black smoke billowing from a city. Users are fervently sharing this image and claiming that US and UK forces struck Houthi terrorist targets in Yemen that were disturbing the peace in the Red Sea.

A user named Hananya Naftali shared this image on X(Twitter) and wrote: “Sana’a, Yemen. US and UK forces struck Houthi terrorist targets in Yemen that were disturbing the peace in the Red Sea”

The archive link can be seen here

Furthermore, we found that other users also shared this image and made similar claims.

Fact-Check

To determine the reality of the above viral image, the DFRAC team reverse-searched it on Google and found some media reports from the year 2022, featuring the same image but with a different news.

Media reports from Reuters and Infobae.

We found a media report by Infobae published on March 25, 2022, with the headline: “Yemeni rebel attacks sparked a huge fire in a Saudi Arabian oil company during the Formula One Grand Prix”. In this report, Infobae mentioned: “Yemeni rebels claimed on Friday a series of drone and missile attacks in Saudi Arabia, which set off a huge fire at a facility at the Aramco oil company in Jeddah, the country’s second city”.

Moreover, another media report by Reuters dated March 26, 2022, stated: “Yemen’s Houthis said they launched attacks on Saudi energy facilities on Friday and the Saudi-led coalition said oil giant Aramco’s petroleum products distribution station in Jeddah was hit, causing a fire in two storage tanks but no casualties. A huge plume of black smoke could be seen rising over the Red Sea city where the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is taking place this weekend, an eyewitness said”.

 Conclusion

It is clear from DFRAC’s Fact-Check that the viral image claiming US and UK forces struck Houthi terrorist targets in Yemen is misleading as the image dates back to March 2022 when Yemeni rebel attacks sparked a huge fire in a Saudi Arabian oil company during the Formula One Grand Prix.