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| - Fact Check: Viral Video falsely links old incident to recent Houthi missile attack on ship
India Today found that the viral video is four years old and shows a vessel on fire off Al Khan beach in Sharjah.
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India Today Fact Check
The video is unrelated to the Houthi attack. It’s a 2019 video of a ship on fire off the coast of Sharjah in the UAE.
On January 26, Yemeni Houthi militants reportedly struck Bermuda-owned M/V Marlin Luanda with an anti-ship ballistic missile in the Gulf of Aden. According to an Indian Navy spokesperson, the INS Visakhapatnam, a guided missile destroyer, responded to a distress call from the vessel that had 22 Indian and one Bangladeshi crew onboard.
Now, a video going viral on social media claims to show the visuals of the strike. The post claimed: “First Visual of the British oil tanker hit by a missile launched by Yemen's Houthis Terrorist.” An archive of the post can be seen here.
India Today found that the viral video is four years old and shows a vessel on fire off Al Khan beach in Sharjah.
Our Probe
While conducting a reverse search on the keyframes of the viral video, we came across a report from Gulf Today dated September 4, 2019, which featured grabs from the same video. Per the report, a fire broke out in a vessel in the sea off Al Khan beach in Sharjah, UAE, destroying 104 vehicles onboard.
Another report added that the Sharjah Civil Defense Department extinguished the fire and that no one was injured. You can read other reports about the incident here and here.
According to the US Central Command, M/V Marlin Luanda, the ship that was struck, was Marshall Islands-flagged and Bermuda-owned, and it was transporting for commercial use a cargo of Naphtha, a highly flammable liquid hydrogen mixture.
Thus, it’s clear that the viral clip doesn’t show a recent Houthi attack.
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