Following the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, a video circulating on social media purports to show Senate Opposition Leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas alleging that the US used Pakistan’s airspace to launch strikes against Iran during a televised debate.
The statement is incorrect. The senator made no such remarks during the broadcast.
Claim
On March 3, an X user shared an 18-second clip showing opposition politician Allama Raja Nasir Abbas being interviewed on a private news channel.
The post was captioned: “Pakistan is giving its airspace to the US and Israel to attack Iran. Listen to this Shia leader.”
In the video, Abbas appears to say: “I have spoken to the top leaders of my army several times, but our army still allowed the United States to use our airspace. This is very wrong, very shameful. Whatever happens in Iran, the responsibility lies with the Pakistani army.”
At the time of writing, the post had received over 46,000 views.
Do
Allama Raja Nasir Abbas made no comment on the US use of Pakistani airspace during the interview. In fact, the program aired in 2024, well before the US and Israeli attacks on Iran in February of this year.
The extract circulating online is taken from an interview given by Abbas on July 27, 2024 to a private news channel. Geography Fact Check reviewed the original recording, which is over 40 minutes long. At no point during the discussion did the politician mention that Pakistan’s airspace was being used by the United States.
Geography Fact Check also analyzed the viral clip using the University at Buffalo’s DeepFake-o-Meter. The tool returned a fake probability score of 99.7%, indicating that the video is most likely generated using artificial intelligence.
Additionally, Hive Moderation, an AI content detection platform, gave the images an overall score of 99.7%, which also suggests that the material was produced using artificial intelligence.
Visual examination also shows that Abbas’s lip movements and facial expressions do not consistently match the audio. This mismatch is another strong indication that the images have been manipulated.
Verdict: The circulating clip was manipulated using AI tools. Allama Raja Nasir Abbas made no statement about Pakistan’s airspace or other claims attributed to him in the video.
