Following the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, a video circulating on social media claims to show Senate Opposition Leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas alleging that the US used Pakistani airspace to launch attacks on Iran during a television talk show.
The statement is incorrect. The senator made no such comments during the program.
Say
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 titled: “Pakistan is ceding its airspace to the United States and Israel to attack Iran. Listen to this Shiite leader.”
In the video, Abbas appears to say: “I have spoken to the top leadership of my army several times, but still our army allowed the United States to use our airspace. This is very wrong, it is very shameful. Whatever happens in Iran, the responsibility lies with the Pakistani army.”
At the time of writing, the post had received more than 46,000 views.
Made
Allama Raja Nasir Abbas did not comment on the use of Pakistani airspace by the United States during the interview. In fact, the show aired in 2024, long before the US and Israeli attacks on Iran in February of this year.
The clip circulating online was taken from an interview Abbas gave on July 27, 2024 to a private news channel. Geographic data verification reviewed the original recording, which is more than 40 minutes long. At no point during the discussion did the politician mention that the United States uses Pakistani airspace.
Geographic data verification He also analyzed the viral clip using the University at Buffalo’s DeepFake-o-Meter. The tool returned a false probability score of 99.7%, indicating that the video was most likely generated using artificial intelligence.
Additionally, Hive Moderation, an AI content discovery platform, gave the footage an overall score of 99.7%, also suggesting 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 discrepancy is another strong indication that the footage was manipulated.
Verdict: The circulating clip was manipulated using artificial intelligence tools. Allama Raja Nasir Abbas did not make any statements regarding Pakistani airspace or the other claims attributed to him in the video.
