On May 7, the Israeli police force clashed with Palestinian protesters at Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest site after Mecca and Medina, located on the site Jews revere as the Temple Mount.
In the backdrop of the above incident, many social media users are sharing a video of an army attacking a mosque with a claim that the video is of Israeli troops storming the Al-Aqsa mosque. The video is being shared with a caption, "Al AQSA Mosque is taken over by Israel troops and PM of Israel announced that where our troop will reach that will be our boundaries."
The video is widely shared on Facebook.
VHP-Bajrang Dal, Pune also shared the video.
The video is viral on Twitter.
Claim:
The viral video is of a recent attack on the Al-Aqsa mosque by Israeli troops.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian broke the video into several keyframes using InVid tools and then did a reverse image that led to an Arabic YouTube channel, where the video was published on September 5, 2020. The video mentioned that the footage shows an attack on the Golden Mosque/Al-Askari Shrine in Iraq's Samarra in 2004.
Another YouTube channel, FUNKER530 - Veteran Community & Combat Footage, had shared the longer version of the viral video. The title of the video reads, "Historical US Special Forces Raid On Golden Mosque". The footage was uploaded on August 29, 2020. The description of the video reads, "The raid on the Golden Mosque took place on October 1, 2004, as part of the Battle for Samarra, also known as Operation Baton Rouge. The 36th Iraqi Commando Battalion, led by US special forces troops (possibly 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group), breached the compound after an AH64 Apache eliminated a three-man RPG team in the mosque with Hellfire missiles."
According to The Guardian's Iraq war logs published on October 22, 2010, the US battalion raided Iraq's Golden mosque and detained 25 people with weapons.
An article published in the Los Angeles Times on October 6, 2004, reported that as US troops cleared insurgent strongholds and pounded the city with airstrikes, four units of Iraqi forces seized sensitive buildings, such as the Golden Mosque and its ancient minaret.
On comparing the Golden dome visible in the viral video with the Golden dome of the Al-Askari shrine, we found them to be the same.
Hence a 2004 video of US troop attacking Golden mosque in Iran has gone viral with Israel troop attacking Al-Aqsa mosque.
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