Since the United States and Israel began launching airstrikes against Iran on February 28, social media has been flooded with content that claims to show scenes from Tehran and other Iranian cities.

Though some footage is real — especially images published by reputable, professional media organizations — some is misleading, recycled, taken out of context or artificially generated and simply fake.

DW Fact Check examined several widely shared videos that users claim show events in Iran.

Tehran: Has the US explicitly dropped 2,000-pound bombs on the city?

Claim: In a video in posted on X Wednesday that had received 2.9 million views by Friday, a user claims that the footage shows the capital of Iran: Tehran. He states that the "US began dropping 2,000 pound (910-kilogram) bombs" on March 4 and the Trump "administration still says this is not a war."

DW Fact Check: Misleading.

The US military confirmed on X that B-2 stealth bombers began striking Iran's ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs as early as February 28. The United States started bombing Tehran on that date, as well.

A reverse image search finds that the video does indeed show bombing in Tehran, despite several other posts claiming eroneously that the video shows Baghdad in 2003 or Beirut in 2020. 

The user who first posted the video, as well as the London-based media outlet Iran International, both confirmed that it was taken close to Shariati Street in Tehran, and therefore shows bombing in Iran's capital. The language being spoken in the video is Farsi (also known as Persian), the official language of Iran. 

Neither we nor the social media user in this claim can say with any certainty whether this video specifically shows 2,000-pound bombs being dropped on Tehran, as claimed.

The claimed date is also incorrect. The video was originally shared on March 1 (see above) and therefore cannot show events on March 4. Clues that identify this as the original include the video being of a higher quality and a longer version and that it was the earliest posting we found online. The thread includes several videos from the same moment from different angles. 

As for the claim that "the administration still says this is not a war," this is correct. US President Donald Trump called the US actions in Iran "major combat operations," but there has indeed not yet been any formal declaration of "war."

In conclusion, some elements of this claim are true, but other aspects of it are incorrect, misleading or unproven.

Has Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral taken place?

Claim: One user on Facebook claims that a video shows a funeral procession for Iran's late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The video had been watched more than 90,000 times by Friday and was shared with the same claim on several other social media platforms (TikTok, X, Instagram). 

DW Fact check: False.

Khamenei was killed in the first wave of US-Israeli attacks. As of Friday, an official funeral had not yet taken place. Indeed, it would be a major feat to organize such an event in such a short space of time, especially for a country at war. 

The video does indeed show a funeral, but not Khamenei's. Rather, it shows the funeral of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his likely intended successor, Hashem Safieddine, which took place on February 23, 2025.

By conducting reverse image searches with screenshots from the video, we found articles by news outlets with similar visuals.

The AFP news agency took more detailed photos of that funeral, in which we can identify the portraits of Nasrallah and Safieddine, as well as the flags of Hezbollah and Lebanon (circled in blue).

Has Khamenei's son been killed?

Claim: In this post on X, a user claims that Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran's recently assassinated supreme leader, was also killed in US strikes in Tehran. The post has 2.6 million views at the time of writing. 

DW Fact check: False.

Mojtaba Khamenei was confirmed as Iran's new supreme leader by the country's Assembly of Experts on Sunday, March 8, succeeding his late father and proving that earlier claims about his death were incorrect.

DW Fact Check also debunked a deepfake claiming to show Mojtaba's supposed inauguration address, which hadn't taken place at that point.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said any leader appointed by Iran's government to replace Khamenei would be an "unequivocal target for elimination." However, as of March 9, there is no evidence to suggest that Mojtaba has met this fate.

Were he to be killed, we would expect this to be publicly communicated by either the United States, Israel or Iran. No formal statement of the sort has been made.

Disclaimer: The claim regarding Mojtaba Khamenei was updated on March 9 to reflect his appointment as Iran's new supreme leader.

Negin Jamshidi Fard and Niloofar Gholami contributed to this report.

Edited by: Matt Ford