Politics

The Defense Department was forced on Monday to deny the U.S. had struck Iran’s main petroleum export facility after President Donald Trump posted a fake but very realistic AI-generated video showing a purported attack by American forces.

The video, posted to the president’s Truth Social account, appears to show oil storage tanks and refineries erupting in flames from the perspective of someone filming from inside a helicopter above the carnage, with an accompanying message describing the scene as “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens” and signed as “President DJT.”

But a U.S. official said no such attack had taken place, with Kharg Island not being among the locations targeted overnight in what has been the first exchange of fire between American and Iranian forces in weeks.