A photo of a boat under the flags of Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been altered and shared on Burmese social media with the false claim that it depicts a boat used by the Arakan army, a rebel group fighting the Myanmar junta to conquer its own autonomous homeland. The doctored photo was shared shortly after local media reported a major naval incident course The base was captured by the rebel group in early September.
“The Arakan Army Navy uses this boat,” the Burmese-language Facebook post said after on September 30, 2024.
The post, which has been shared more than 800 times, shows a speedboat course of action the flags of the Arakan Army and its political wing – the United League of Arakan (archived links here And here).
The image was shared on Facebook along with similar claims here, here And here.
The message circulated on Burmese social media following reports that the Arakan Army had captured a key naval training center in the southern part of Rakhine State on September 5. first major naval base to be captured by the ethnic armed group (archived link).
The Arakan Army has been attacking forces of Myanmar’s ruling junta since November, ending a ceasefire that has largely held since a 2021 military coup.
But the image has been digitally changed.
The waving of the Iranian flag
A reverse image search on Tineye found the image published on the website of Reuters on January 4, 2020 (archived link).
The caption of the photo read: “A boat carrying the Iranian Revolutionary Guards cruises at a secret location off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran, August 2019.”
The photo was attributed to Nazanin Tabatabaee/West Asia News Agency, a Tehran-based media organization.
The photo shows that the flags flying on the boat are actually from Iran national flag and what appears to be the flag of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological branch of the Iranian army (archived links here And here).
The same photo has been published in other news reports related to Iran 2019, 2022 And 2023 (archived links here, here And here).
Below is a screenshot of the altered image in the fake message (left) and the photo from West Asia News Agency (right):
AFP has previously debunked disinformation regarding the Arakan Army here And here.
