A video clip showing a man hugging a girl has recently spread on social media , with the following claim: “Qasem Soleimani comforting the wife of a Revolutionary Guard commander who was killed in Syria.”
Kashif verified the video using the “INVID” tool and found that it is old and the claim to be misleading. The video clip is excerpted from a longer video. On 13 September 2017, “ Al-Kawthar ” website published news about Soleimani checking on the daughter of one of the dead, Fatima, the youngest child of Hamed Bafandeh, who was killed in an advisory mission on 22 April 2017 while he was fighting against terrorist groups in the Syrian province of Hama.
On 10 February 2018, the “ Bashgah-e Khabarnegaran-e Javan ” website published the full video of in a report about Suleimani hugging the child, Fatima.
On 13 September 2017, the “ Clack ” account published a video clip on the Apparat platform showing Hamed Bafandeh’s daughter hugging Qassem Soleimani.
Qasem Soleimani was the commander of al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and was killed in a US missile strike that targeted a convoy of an Iranian-backed militia at Baghdad airport on 3 January 2020.
