Fact Check: Saudi’s Ras Tanura oil refinery attacked by Iran? No, video is old, unrelated

Hyderabad: As violence escalates in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery temporarily halted operations on March 2 following an attack by drones. Saudi officials say it was caused by debris from an intercepted Iranian missile, Al Jazeera wrote.

Iran’s Tasnim News Agency quoted a military source as saying, “The attack on Aramco was an Israeli false flag operation,” adding that Israel’s goal is to distract the minds of regional countries from its crimes in attacking civilian sites in Iran.

Amid the prevailing tensions, a video showing a huge explosion followed by the eruption of fire and smoke is going viral on social media. The claims accompanying the video state that it shows Saudi Arabia's largest oil refinery, Aramco Ras Tanura, being hit by Iranian strikes.

The video was shared on Instagram, and the text overlay reads, “Iranian drone hits Saudi ARAMCO facility! One of the World's Largest Oil Export Hubs Targeted”.

A part of the caption states, “Iran strikes the heart of the world’s oil supply, Saudi ARAMCO’s Ras Tanura refinery hit by Iranian Shahed 136 drone.” (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is misleading. The video shows Israel’s strikes on Yemen’s Sanaa on August 24, 2025.

Aramco halted operations at Ras Tanura

Keyword searches led us to videos of the Ras Tanura refinery that was shut down on March 2 following blasts caused by intercepted drones. On the same day, Reuters shared visuals on YouTube titled “Major oil, gas facilities shut after Middle East strikes.” However, this video does not show the same visuals or surroundings as the video in question.

Quoting the Saudi Press Agency, a Bloomberg report from March 2 said, “There was a ‘limited’ fire at the plant caused by debris from the interception of two drones that were targeting the facility, and the blaze was ‘immediately contained.’”

Hence, it is clear that there was no major blast at the refinery as claimed in the viral posts.

Analysing the Video

Reverse image searches of the viral video’s keyframes led us to a number of social media posts from different dates sharing the same video with different claims.

A Facebook video captioned the clip as “Massive explosion in Bahrain following strike from Iran.” Another Instagram user shared the video with the location set as ‘Gaza’.

However, we also found two Instagram accounts and a Facebook account sharing the same video with captions suggesting that the blast took place in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Both videos were shared on August 24, 2025. We found no earlier instances of the viral video appearing on social media.

Both videos are slightly extended versions of the viral video, showing an extra one-second clip at the beginning.

In this one-second clip, we can see a flexi with the Arabic text ‘مدرسة عذبان الله’. We performed keyword searches combining this Arabic text with another keyword, ‘Sanaa Yemen’. The results led us to a school in Sanaa named ‘Athban School’.

We also found an image of the school uploaded to Facebook by the account ‘Athban Model School’. The image shows corridors that are similar to those of a building in the viral video. An image showing the comparison can be found below.

We found several images of the school with the same corridors.

An Al Jazeera report from September 21, 2011 also shares the same image while reporting about a ‘Back to School campaign in Yemen.’ The description of the image reads, “The Adhban school was empty of students and teachers yesterday, Tuesday, due to clashes (Al Jazeera Net).” (Translated from Arabic).

This confirms that the building from the viral video and the school are the same. We performed keyword searches and found reports of blasts that took place in Sanaa on August 24, 2025.

According to the reports, Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV said the attack on August 24, 2025 targeted an oil facility and a power plant in Sanaa, while Israel said it also targeted a presidential palace in the Yemeni capital, which it claimed is located in a “military complex”.

Reporting about the locations targeted, Reuters wrote, “The Israeli military said the targets included a military compound housing the presidential palace, two power plants and a fuel storage site.”

Reuters also used a video of the blast in this report. The location and date tag on the video confirm that it was shot in Yemen’s Sanaa on August 24, 2025. NewsMeter compared the blast visuals in this video with those in the viral video. The smoke plume at the beginning of both videos is identical, except that it is mirrored, implying that the videos of the same blast were shot from two opposite directions. An image showing this comparison can be found below.

It is clear that the viral video shows Israel striking Yemen’s Sanaa on August 24, 2025. Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claims are Misleading.