Chris Walker
Truthout / August 31, 2026
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Trump believed that the video was real.
On Monday, the Department of Defense was forced to correct a Truth Social post by President Donald Trump, which wrongly asserted, through the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated video, that U.S. military forces had conducted a large-scale attack on Iran’s Kharg Island.
VIDEO CLICK HERE
The U.S. and Iran launched attacks against each other on Sunday evening. But according to a U.S. official, no such attack occurred on Kharg Island, despite Trump’s post suggesting otherwise.
Instead, the U.S. military conducted attacks on Larak Island, which is close to the Iranian coastline near the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM claimed that the attack was necessary because Iran was supposedly placing “minelaying forces” in the area. In response, Iranian media reported that the country launched counterattacks against U.S. bases in Jordan.
The actions between the two countries are believed to be the first known attacks to have occurred since July. They also come as the war in Iran, started and continued by the Trump administration with no authorization from Congress, completed its sixth month of hostilities, despite the president promising at its start that it would take no more than a few weeks to complete.
In his Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump shared an AI video of bombings and said it depicted what was happening at Kharg Island, where, prior to the war, 90 percent of Iranian oil exports were handled.
“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!” Trump wrote.
It’s unclear whether Trump believed the video to be real before he shared it, or whether he believed an actual attack on the island had occurred.
Later on Monday, Vice President JD Vance tried to explain Trump’s post by saying that the president wasn’t commenting on what he thought was currently happening, but on what could happen in the future.
“The president likes to switch it up on social media a little bit. He would be the first to say he doesn’t make announcements about military actions on social media, but I think that he’s sending a message to the Iranians,” Vance said.
Early in the war, Trump had ordered limited attacks on Kharg Island, but large-scale attacks like those depicted in the video he shared never materialized.
An attack on Kharg Island could constitute a war crime. The oil refineries and other infrastructure on the island are civilian-based, not military targets. Additionally, the island is home to 8,000 permanent residents, meaning any large attack there would likely result in the loss of noncombatant innocent lives, in violation of international law.
Chris Walker is a news writer at Truthout, based in Madison, Wisconsin
__________
Vance says Trump ‘sending a message’ to Iran with AI-generated video
AJ Staff
Al-Jazeera / August 31, 2026
Video depicting Kharg Island being attacked is later followed by more warnings from President Trump.
An AI-generated video depicting missiles raining down on a key Iranian island to destroy what appears to be oil-processing infrastructure is meant as a warning to Iran, United States Vice President JD Vance says.
President Donald Trump posted the video on his account on Sunday night and on Monday followed up with a post saying Iran was “dead” and a “failed nation”.
Asked about the posts, Vance said on Monday that they were specifically meant to tell the Iranians there will be “consequences” if they continue threatening commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
“We know that they continue to shoot at commercial shipping. We continue to have a lot of tools at our disposal to prevent them from doing so or at least cut down on them from doing so, and that’s what the president is saying,” Vance told reporters at an Air Force base in Maryland. “‘You guys are shooting at commercial shipping. You guys are behaving like a terrorist country. You’ve got to stop or there are going to be some consequences.’”
Kharg Island in the Gulf is used by Iran to process about 90 percent of its oil exports. Trump has threatened to attack it and even take the island over since starting a war on Iran with Israel on February 28. In March, US forces hit military facilities on the island but avoided oil infrastructure.
The threats come as the US and Iran exchanged fire for the first time in nearly a month. On Sunday, the US said it targeted launchers on Iran’s Larak Island that were preparing to fire naval mines into the Strait of Hormuz. The US has been working to clear such mines in the area for months now in an ongoing battle to open the passageway for commercial shipping.
Iran retaliated by launching missiles at three airbases in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan where US forces are stationed although none of those reached their targets.
Last week, the US announced it had struck a deal with Venezuela that would give it majority control of the country’s oil reserves, the largest proven oil reserves in the world. US forces abducted then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, and the new Venezuelan government has since dropped restrictions on foreign involvement in its oil sector.
