An image circulating widely on X, Facebook and other social media platforms purporting to show the body of Ali Khamenei beneath rubble following an airstrike has been confirmed as artificially generated, Dawn reports.

The image first appeared and started to spread on March 1, after reports that the dead supreme leader Khamenei, who led the Islamic Republic for more than 30 years, had been killed in a strike carried out the day before by the US and Israel.

Iran described the strikes as unprovoked and illegal and has since responded by firing multiple missile barrages at Israel and at least seven other countries at time of writing. These including Gulf states hosting US military bases, and some reports have emerged that missiles were fired in the direction of Southeast Europe.

One pro-Iranian user on the X platform owned by Elon Musk is understood to have shared the image of a body in the rubble alongside a message praising the leader’s sacrifice. The post attracted around 4.8mn views and 30,000 likes according to Dawn. A second user is then reported as posting the same image with a tribute declaring devotion to the leader. This drew at least 2mn views and 16,000 likes.

A further account claiming that Iran had released an image of Khamenei’s body beneath rubble garnered 4.6mn more views as the images went viral.

Given the scale of its circulation and public interest in the circumstances surrounding Khamenei’s reported death, a fact-check was then conducted to verify the authenticity of the images, whereby closer inspection of the image showed a number of inconsistencies with standard victim rescue or recovery procedures in the case of collapsed buildings.

Forensic analysis using multiple AI-detection tools, including Undetectable.ai, AI or Not, Sightengine, Hive Moderation and Truth Scan, also showed that the rubble in the image had itself been generated using AI. Further examinations reported by Dawn suggested that most of the visual content had been edited or created using Google’s AI tools.

Bne will not be adding to the confusion by sharing the images produced.