Claim: A video shows a fire at the PAF’s Nur Khan Airbase in Rawalpindi after India launched missile attacks across Pakistan’s eastern region.
Fact: India did launch attacks on Pakistani airbases, but the video in question is from December 2023 when a fire erupted due to a tanker accident.
On 10 May 2025, Instagram user @alinagul.pti posted (archive) a video showing fire on a road allegedly near Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Nur Khan Airbase, near Rawalpindi. It is captioned as follows:
“Nur Khan Airbase has been att*cked by India. B*STARDS.”
Pakistan Army spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry confirmed in the early hours of Saturday that India had attacked the different PAF airbases, including Nur Khan in Chaklala, Rawalpindi, Murid in Chakwal, and Rafiqui, alternatively known as Shorkot, in Jhang, Dawn reported.
The Pakistani military intercepted a “majority” of India’s missiles, Chaudhry said, adding that they “successfully prevent[ed] the desired objectives of India”.
The military spokesperson also said that India’s missiles and drones also attacked Afghanistan, as well as its “Sikhs and minorities” in its own country. “This is a shocking development and provocation of the highest order, where India has now started firing ballistic missiles at its own population, which doesn’t make any sort of sense. This is an act bereft of sanity,” he added. India has rejected this claim, calling it “absurd”.
The missiles that did make it inside the Pakistani territory have “not been able to cause any damage” to the country’s assets. The PAF was able to figure out “from where they [Indian missiles] were initiated and what was targeted” through their electronic signatures.
Pakistan Army, Chaudhry said, was “vigilant and thwarting all these cowardly acts of aggression by Indians”.
In response, the Pakistan military announced a counterattack against India at 4:38 AM, named “Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos”, which is an Arabic phrase that translates to “a structure made of lead”.
India’s missile attacks and Pakistan’s response mark “the most significant escalation so far in the brewing conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours”, according to The Guardian.
According to the press department of New Delhi’s military, the 10 May missile attacks were “a response to Pakistan’s misadventures of attempted drone strikes on the night of 08 and 09 May 2025 in multiple cities of Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab”.
This article is not investigating the nature and scale of India or Pakistan’s attacks.
Fact or Fiction?
A reverse-image search of keygrames from the viral video led us to an Instagram post from 7 December 2025; it is captioned as follows:
“Nur khan Air base ky Kareeb Tanker Ulaatny sy usmy Aag lag Gayi. [A fire erupted near Nur Khan Airbase when a tanker overturned]”.
We also came across two Instagram posts that carry videos of the same incident from different angles.
According to a 6 December 2023 video by ChampAlertsOnTheGo (CAOTG) — “a forum where you can get real-time news & 99% authentic” — the caption reads as follows:
“#Breaking #Rawalpindi: Tankers collided in front of Nur Khan Airbase – Old Airport. People are requested to avoid the road. Fire all over. Give way to emergency services.”
In another post from 7 December 2023 by Jaago TV, the caption reads:
“#Breaking : Tankers collided in front of Nur Khan Airbase – Old Islamabad international Airport. Yet no life loss reported. People are requested not to travel from this route to prevent any mishap.”
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the viral clip is not from the May 2025 attack on Pakistan’s Nur Khan Airbase.
Operation Sindoor and Pakistan’s Response
Indian airstrikes in Pakistan
In the early hours of 7 May, the Indian military launched Operation Sindoor and sent missiles at least six targets inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. These missile strikes, which constituted the most serious escalation of military hostilities between the two nations since 1971, killed at least 31 people, including at least three children, and wounded at least 57 others according to Pakistani authorities.
India claimed that their missiles struck nine “terrorist camps” whereas Pakistan asserted that the targets chosen by India were civilian neighborhoods in densely populated areas. While it is difficult to independently ascertain whether “terrorist camps” were the target of India’s strikes, on ground footage and reporting from local hospitals showed that a number of women and children had been killed and injured in the attacks. This lends credibility to Pakistan’s assertions that civilians were harmed, contrary to claims made by Indian officials.
Notably, military strikes in Pakistani Punjab are across a recognised international border and constitute a major escalation relative to the surgical strikes carried out along the Line of Control (LoC), the ceasefire line that divides Pakistan-administered Kashmir from Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the airstrikes, saying his country had “every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India”.
The Pahalgam Attack
The strikes carried out by India as part of Operation Sindoor were purportedly in response to the terror attack that took place in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on 22 April 2025, which killed 26 people, mostly tourists.
India has blamed the attacks on Pakistan whereas Pakistan has denied any involvement and demanded a neutral investigation.
The Resistance Front – a group that Indian officials maintain is a proxy front for the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – initially claimed responsibility for that attack but later retracted its statement.
The Indus Waters Treaty
Soon after the attack in Pahalgam, the Indian government announced the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. The landmark water-sharing treaty, which had been in place since 1960 had previously endured despite many instances of armed conflict between the neighbouring nuclear countries.
After a UNSC meeting to discuss the matter, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Now, India’s water will flow for India’s benefit, it will be conserved for India’s benefit, and it will be used for India’s progress”. On the other hand, Pakistan stated that attempts to stop or divert Pakistan’s water would be considered an “act of war and responded with full force across the complete spectrum of national power”.
Indian Jets in Pakistan
Soon after Indian missile strikes hit multiple locations in Pakistan, the Pakistani military announced that they had shot down five Indian warplanes including several Rafale Fifth Generation fighter jets. India has not yet responded directly to this claim but a growing number of media outlets have confirmed that at least some Indians planes, including at least one Rafale, did in fact go down during the early morning hours of 7 May 2025.
Drone War
On the morning of 8 May, India launched a wave of drone attacks across Pakistan, killing at least one person and wounding several. Pakistan military spokesperson claimed that 25 Indian drones were shot down in different locations across the country and on the following day claimed that the number of drones shot down had grown to 77.
At this time, Soch Fact Check has not been able to independently verify the exact number of Indian drones that entered Pakistan, or how many were shot down. Debris from drones has been found in a number of locations and Soch Fact Check has visited the two crash sites in Karachi and two in Rawalpindi.
Indian authorities claimed that the drone attacks were in response to a Pakistani attack on Amritsar the previous night whereas Pakistan denied that any attacks had been carried out. Subsequent to the drone attacks on Pakistan, India said that Pakistan carried out missile and drone attacks on Jammu in Indian Occupied Kashmir. Pakistan also denied this allegation, adding that it was “entirely unfounded, politically motivated, and part of a reckless propaganda campaign aimed at maligning Pakistan”.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the viral video shared multiple times on Instagram. Some of the posts can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: India did launch attacks on Pakistani airbases, but the video in question is from December 2023 when a fire erupted due to a tanker accident.
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