An image of a massive smoke cloud billowing from an industrial site circulated across platforms after Israeli airstrikes on June 13, 2025 hit targets across Iran, with social media users claiming the picture showed damage to an oil refinery. But the photo is unrelated, dating back to a fire at a petrochemical plant in November 2020.
“BREAKING: ANOTHER EXPLOSION AT AN OIL REFINERY IN IRAN,” says a June 13, 2025 post sharing the visual on X.
The post comes from Sulaiman Ahmed, a self-described journalist who has repeatedly shared disinformation about the Middle East and the war between Israel and Hamas.
Similar posts spread across platforms and in other languages, including Spanish and Persian.
The image circulated after the Israeli military hit a range of Iranian nuclear sites, in an escalation of Israel’s war with the militant group Hamas in Gaza.
Iran called the attack — which killed several top military commanders and nuclear scientists — a “declaration of war.”
Oil prices soared in the aftermath of the airstrikes. But analysts told AFP price gains were capped in part by news that there has been no immediate reduction to crude production or supplies, as the strikes appeared to have avoided Iranian oil facilities.
The image shared by Ahmed and others on social media is also several years outdated.
Reverse image searches surfaced the photo in Iranian news reports detailing a November 4, 2020 incident at a petrochemical plant in Ilam, Iran (archived here and here). Rokna News Agency posted the photo to Telegram, saying it showed a “massive explosion” at the plant (archived here).
Further reports said the plume of smoke was in fact due to a fire in a waste pond that was quickly extinguished with no casualties (archived here, here and here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation about the Middle East, here.
