Social media users share AI-generated video falsely depicting Iran’s supreme leader’s funeral

An X-post published on July 5, 2026 states, “About 40 million people attended the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran, not including various cities across the country.”

The post shares a 33-second aerial video of people gathering at a large religious site. Crowds dressed in black filled the streets surrounding the venue, holding Arabic signs and Iranian flags.

Other posts sharing the same video made similar claims in Thai, English, Sindhi and Arabic and went viral, with one clip racking up more than 20,000 views.

The video spread as crowds gathered in Tehran for Ayatollah Khamenei’s public funeral, which was held for six days starting July 4, including on his dedication day in neighboring Iraq (archive link).

Mourners packed a religious site in Iran’s capital, Grand Mosala, where his body was laid to rest alongside the coffins of four other family members who also died in the February 28 US and Israeli attack.

However, the video shared online contains multiple visual inconsistencies and elements that do not match the authentic photo of Grand Mosala.

AI generated video

The clip itself depicts the same structure in different ways across several cuts.

In one shot, only two minarets are visible within the complex, but seconds later the building appears with a green roof and four additional minarets.

Satellite images from Google Maps show Grand Mosala with features that do not match the structure depicted in the circulating video (archived link).

AFP also took and distributed photos of mourners at Grand Mosala on July 5, which differ from the footage circulating online.

When we analyzed the video using Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool, we found that it was generated by AI 99.7% of the time (archive link).

AFP has previously debunked other AI-generated content related to Iran and the Middle East wars.