A video clip depicting an aircraft flying over a remote area while firing missiles was shared as the junta’s attack on ethnic rebels stronghold in Myanmar’s Rakhine state as the wartorn region struggles with hunger from conflict and blockade.However, a journalist who flimed the video told AFP that it was filmed in northern Sri Lanka in 2009 which marked the end of the country’s decades long civil war.
“military attacking AA base in Minbya. The video was posted by an AA soldier,” reads the caption of the Burmese-language Facebook post shared on July 25, 2025.
The video, which has been shared for more than 400 times on Facebook, shows a military aircraft firing rockets and machine guns into a wooded area.
Screenshot taken on August 25, 2025 of the false post with an X marked by AFP
The Arakan Army (AA) are an ethnic minority rebel group battling Myanmar’s ruling junta in western Rakhine state and now control 14 of the 17 key towns in the state.
The region has emerged as a key front in Myanmar’s highly fractured civil war, pitching a myriad of ethnic minority rebels and pro-democracy fighters against the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup (archived link).
The UN had warned in August, 2025 that the region’s more than 2 million residents face immenient danger of hunger from the conflict and aids cut by the US government (archived link).
The video circulated online with the same claim on multiple Facebook post as the junta’s forces recaptured keys towns under the controlled of rebels group in other part of the country (archived link).
However, the video is at least more than a decade old and was filmed during the Sri Lanka civil war in 2009.
Reverse image search of one of the keyframes from the video on Google found the same clip in a longer YouTube video shared on January 25, 2025. “SL Army entered Chalai and Tiger’s boasts,” reads the title in Sinhala language (archived link).
Screenshot comparison of the video from the false post (L) to the YouTube video
Sri Lankan journalist, Amal Samantha, shared the video on his YouTube channel where he archives his previous work and can be seen speaking to the camera at 1:37 minute mark in the video (archived link).
“This is my video. Sri Lanka Air force MI 24 Helicopter Gunship attacks LTTE terrorist bunker line in northern Sri Lanka in war period 2009,” he told AFP in an email on August 19, 2025.
Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war killed about 100,000 people and set development back by decades, ending only after the Tamil rebels fighting for autonomy were massacred in 2009. The operation was condemned internationally for the indiscriminate bombardment of civilians (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked misinformation related to Myanmar unrest here.