An alleged video of “the moment an explosion occurred at King Khalid Airport in Riyadh.” What is its truth?

- Social media accounts circulated a video clip, amid allegations that at the moment an explosion occurred at King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The video, which has received tens of thousands of views on the X website, shows night scenes of a large explosion that led to the formation of a fireball.

The clip was accompanied by a misleading description that said: “The sound of explosions at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh raises the tension. Guys, there are violent explosions at the airport and the atmosphere is charged with anxiety and anticipation.” By splitting the video into still shots and using a reverse search, we found an older version of the video dating back to May 2023.

The video was posted on a Telegram channel, with a caption saying: “An explosion occurred at the gas facility of the region in Samarkand. Fire and rescue teams have arrived at the site, and operations are currently underway to extinguish the fire.”

At that time, an explosion occurred at a liquefied gas filling station located in the "Yangi-Abad" district of the "Bakhtashi" district in the Samarkand region of Uzbekistan, according to reports from the news site uznews. The website indicated at the time that the accident was believed to have resulted from a violation of safety rules while transporting gas from a tank truck designated for transporting liquefied gas to the station’s storage tank.

The official Turkish network "TRT" also published the same scenes on Facebook, saying that the explosion occurred at a liquefied gas station in Uzbekistan. The return of the video to circulation coincided with the exposure of King Khalid Airport in Riyadh to “flagrant attacks.” The Civil Aviation Authority said, on Saturday evening, that as a result it would suspend operations at the airport.

A statement by the authority said, "The attack resulted in a number of injuries, which are being identified, and operational operations at the airport have been temporarily suspended, until the damage assessment is completed and the safety of the facilities is verified, in coordination with the competent authorities, and developments will be announced later." The Houthi group in Yemen, supported by Iran, launched repeated attacks on several sites in Saudi Arabia, including King Khalid Airport, coinciding with the return of military escalation between the internationally recognized Yemeni government and the Houthis.