Old video of man shooting himself falsely shared as Iranian general who ‘betrayed’ Khamenei

Trigger Warning: Suicide. Viewer Discretion is Advised.

A 25-second video circulating on social media shows a man briefly addressing the camera before shooting himself in the head with a pistol. Social media users claim that the clip shows an Iranian general who allegedly leaked the coordinates of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, enabling US and Israeli forces to assassinate him. According to these claims, the officer took his own life to evade capture and execution by the Iranian state.

Israel and the United States launched a coordinated military offensive against Iran on February 28, 2026, targeting multiple military and government facilities across the country. The opening wave of strikes reportedly killed Khamenei along with several senior Iranian officials and military commanders.

The video has been widely shared on WhatsApp and other social media platforms. One such post was shared on X by an account named Abu Bahar (@dwgan3) on March 4, 2026. The caption accompanying the video reads: “It’s said that this Iranian general was sending coordinates to Americans and Zionists, and after he found out that he had been exposed, he committed suicide with his personal pistol.”

At the time of this article being written, the post had garnered over 135,500 views and has been reposted 125 times.

يُقال إن هذا الجنرال الإيراني كان يرسل إحداثيات للأمريكان والصهاينة
وبعد أن عرف إنه تم كشفه
أنتحر وقتل نفسه بمسدسه الشخصي#مع_إيران_ضد_العدوان#مع_ايران_حتى_النصر pic.twitter.com/VN9LxikMKB

— ((ابو بحار)) (@dwgan3) March 4, 2026

Several other X users shared the same video, echoing the same claim. Below are a few instances:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Alt News received multiple requests on its WhatsApp helpline (7600011160) to examine the authenticity of the video.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Fact Check

To verify the clip’s authenticity, we ran a reverse image search using keyframes from the video. This led us to an old post on Reddit shared on October 17, 2024, where a user under the handle r/Kurdistan had shared screenshots from the same clip with the caption: “Anyone know what the deal with him was?”

According to the Reddit thread, the viral clip is part of a 25-minute-long video in which a Kurdish man, reportedly distressed over the political environment, died by suicide during a Facebook Live broadcast. In the same thread, another user, Independent-Raise635, claimed that the man and his family had been threatened by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and that the harassment drove him to take the extreme step.

The Reddit post contains 21 comments, all of which are more than a year old, indicating that the video predates the current conflict and is not related to recent developments involving Iran.

Using reverse image search, we also found a post on X by an account named Rojhelat News (@NewsRojhelat), which shared snippets from the same video. The post was published on October 15, 2024, and claimed that the man seen in the clip was Zahir Amini, a resident of Baneh in eastern Kurdistan who was living in Erbil. According to the post, Amini died by suicide during an Instagram Live broadcast.

شەوی دووشەممە ٢٣ی رەزبەر هاووڵاتییەک بەناوی زاهیر ئەمینیان خەڵکی شاری بانەی رۆژهەڵاتی کوردستان دانیشتووی هەولێر لە لایڤی ئیستاگرامیدا خۆی کوشت.
وردەکاری لە ڤیدیۆگرافیکدا بخوێننەوە. pic.twitter.com/mPjVWFyfDW

— Rojhelat News-فوری (@NewsRojhelat) October 15, 2024

The same video was also uploaded on the website Documenting Reality by a user named BEHEMOTH on October 18, 2024. The user had reposted the clip from another account called kellyhound.

The 58-second video was accompanied by the following caption:

“TikTok witnessed a tragic incident when a Kurdish citizen broadcasted live to express his severe suffering and harsh conditions. While speaking, he said: ‘The party and the Yekti destroyed us, and the government of the two families did to us what the enemies did not do,’ referring to the economic and social pressures he is experiencing. The citizen spoke about the difficulty of raising his children and providing for their needs, which increased his feelings of frustration and despair. In a painful moment, the citizen hugged his son before he committed suicide in front of the live broadcast camera.”

Hence, from the above findings it is clear that the viral clip is unrelated to the ongoing conflict in West Asia and has been available on the internet for over a year. It has no connection with the reported killing of Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei.