Claims of authentic video footage documenting recent attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh have circulated widely on social media. However, a detailed investigation has confirmed that several popular videos claiming to show the attacks are fabricated and were shared online before the incidents took place.
The Houthi rebels from Yemen have taken responsibility for a number of attacks on the Saudi airport, which Saudi authorities say have resulted in at least 16 fatalities since last Thursday. Alongside genuine reports, social media platforms have been flooded with videos that purportedly capture the strikes. While some authentic footage has emerged, fact-checkers identified core inconsistencies in several viral clips, exposing them as falsified.
Old Footage Misrepresented as Attack Videos
One widely viewed video, which has amassed more than 1.7 million views on the social platform X, claims to present footage of a recent attack at the airport. However, the video was originally uploaded online in March 2026—months before the attacks—and clearly cannot depict events that happened later. Analysis of the clip shows erratic camera movements and blurry images designed to mask visual glitches typical of fabricated content. Frame-by-frame review noted implausible behavior, such as people running toward an explosion rather than away from it, and inexplicable visual anomalies where individuals momentarily appear to lack body parts.
The identification of a hand holding a smartphone superimposed near a person’s head and sudden changes in the appearance of a man’s hand further suggest manipulation. Verification tools used by social media platforms confirmed the presence of generative signatures, cementing the clip’s status as an artificial creation. Despite this, it has been shared extensively worldwide in multiple languages and by prominent media outlets, including the Times of Israel.
AI-generated Video Misrepresents the Airport and Attack
Another viral video with nearly 3 million views falsely claimed to show new footage of the airport being targeted. Reverse image research traced the source to a 2016 Shutterstock stock photo from which the video was generated. Although the synthetic video replicates certain architectural features such as the airport’s distinctive white triangular roofs and domes, it also displays clear errors. These include light poles lacking lamps, shifting shapes of vehicles when hit by a missile, and a lack of realistic shadows despite a massive explosion.
These inconsistencies undermine the video’s validity as genuine attack documentation. The account sharing this video has a history of posting fabricated content, further discrediting its authenticity. While reports confirmed physical damage to planes at the airport on October 8, this particular video does not document those attacks.
Visual Anomalies and Pre-attack Circulation Undermine Another Video
A third video, popular on TikTok with over 300,000 views and claimed to show live footage from within Riyadh Airport during the attacks, was found to have circulated in March 2026 in several languages including Greek, Albanian, Turkish, and Russian. The footage exhibits multiple visual errors such as blurry areas, merging figures, and impossible movements where people appear to walk through barriers and objects. The timing of lights and explosions in the clip also contradicts the expected sequence of events.
Further Deepfake Evidence in Viral Footage
A fourth video circulating on TikTok and Facebook, including a compilation of airport attack clips, was confirmed to contain watermarks and identifiers linking it to digital generation tools. Analysis uncovered embedded markers indicating portions of the video and audio were produced using synthetic video creation software. The Facebook account distributing this video exclusively posts similar content, labeling it clearly as digital creations.
All examined videos are notably short, ranging from six to fifteen seconds, a format that facilitates fabrication and complicates authenticity verification.
