Claim: A video shows people attacking the US embassy in Iraq after an Israeli airstrike killed Ali Larijani, a top Iranian national security official, during the Iran war.
Fact: The video is not connected to the ongoing Iran war. It is from December 2019, when protesters in Iraq stormed the US embassy in Baghdad after US airstrikes on an Iranian-backed militia group in Iraq and Syria.
A Facebook user posted a video (archive) apparently showing the US embassy in Iraq getting attacked after Ali Larijani, a top Iranian national security official, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 17 March. Here is the screenshot of the post:
Screenshot of a post claiming to show the US embassy in Iraq getting attacked amid the ongoing Iran war.
Iran war
The US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, targeting multiple sites on 28 February. The strikes killed former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other Iranian officials and military figures. Mojtaba Khamenei replaced his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Iran’s supreme leader.
In response, Iran launched multiple strikes against Israel and the Gulf states, including Bahrain,the UAE, Kuwait and others, some of which host US bases in the region. Since the war began, Iran also closed the Strait of Hormuz — an important maritime passageway through which approximately 20% of the world’s oil supply transits — disrupting the global oil supply. Oil prices have soared since the closure of the passageway.
At least 1,568 people have been killed in Iran as of 29 March, including approximately 236 children, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Notably, a strike on a girl’s school in Minab, Iran, killed 168 people, most of them children, on 28 February.
Growing evidence and investigations by Bellingcat, CNN, The New York Times suggest that the US is responsible for targeting an area where an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base is located, adjacent to a girl’s school in Minab, Iran. A video released on 8 March by the Mehr News Agency — reviewed by the aforementioned news organisations — revealed that the school was probably hit some time before the IRGC facility. The clip shows smoke already rising from the school before a US Tomahawk missile struck the IRGC facility.
At least 13 US service members have also been killed.
According to the BBC: “As of 29 March, Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service (MDA) said 19 people had been killed by [Iranian] missile fire since the start of the war.”
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the clip and found that it is unrelated to the ongoing Iran war.
The Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation published an article, “Air Force Commander: The American Attack on Iraq – Potential for a Turnaround,” last updated on 1 January 2020. This piece carried a YouTube video, also available on the platform.
The clip is titled [translated from Hebrew into English via Google]: “Fire in the eyes: Angry mob storms the embassy in Baghdad” and was uploaded on 31 December 2019 by a YouTube channel titled (roughly translated via Google from Hebrew): “Here | News – Israel Broadcasting Corporation”. The scenes in this footage match the clip being factchecked, indicating that it is at least six years old.
The description of the video says protesters barged into the US embassy in Iraq after the US attacked “Shiite militia headquarters in Iraq”. The caption claims that the US ambassador was not in the embassy at the time the incident took place.
Various publications also reported on the incident, when angered Iraqi protesters stormed the US embassy compound in Baghdad in December 2019, after US airstrikes targeted an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq and Syria.
Further reverse searches yielded an article by An-Nahar, an Arabic and Lebanese publication, titled, “Angry Iraqi protesters storm the US embassy in Baghdad? Al-Nahar checks FactCheck” on 14 March 2026, which debunked the same footage when it appeared online during the Iran war. This publication carries an original video report on YouTube by Euronews (Arabic) [translated from Arabic into English via Google], “Watch: Moment Iraqi protesters stormed the US embassy in Baghdad” on 31 December 2019, which Soch Fact Check reviewed.
The footage and “euronews” watermark on the top left in the YouTube report are identical to the footage circulating online, confirming that it is old.
Left: video circulating online amid the war. Right: Clip from March 2017 depicting the same scenes as on the left.
Soch Fact Check therefore rates the claim as false.
Virality
The video was shared on Facebook here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
On Instagram, the clip appeared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
It appeared on X here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
Conclusion: The video is not connected to the ongoing Iran war. It is from December 2019, when protesters in Iraq stormed the US embassy in Baghdad after US airstrikes on an Iranian-backed militia group in Iraq and Syria.
Background image in cover photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
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