Viral video claiming Khamenei’s bodyguard was exposed is actually from a different incident in Syria
A video circulating on Facebook claims to show Iran publicly bringing out the bodyguard of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after allegedly detaining him for betraying the Supreme Leader’s location to Israel. A Dismislab fact-check finds the claim to be false. The footage is actually from a nearly year‑old incident in Syria.
On March 4, a personal Facebook profile posted a 2‑minute‑29‑second video showing heavy security cordons as a vehicle arrives. A man in a white T‑shirt, blindfolded and with his hands tied, is taken out of the car. His blindfold is removed, and he is placed before another man seated in a wheelchair.
The caption claimed: “Alhamdulillah. The bodyguard who betrayed Ayatollah Khamenei by giving away his location to Israel has finally been brought out in public on the orders of Khamenei’s son.”
The same video, with the identical claim, was shared by multiple Facebook profiles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and pages.
To verify the footage, Dismislab conducted a reverse image search of key frames and found a video posted on April 26 last year by a Facebook page named SY4. The caption, written in Arabic, stated: “Criminal Taysir meets the public security officers and members whom he tortured, and the families of those who died at his hands.” The 2‑minute‑29‑second video matches the viral clip exactly.
Further keyword searches revealed the same Syrian incident widely shared across multiple social media platforms (1, 2, 3, 4). A video posted on X on April 25, 2026, described the footage as showing “killer Taysir Mahfouz confronting victims in Damascus’ Mezzeh area.” Reports published by Syria‑based news outlets confirm the same.
According to Syrian media (1, 2, 3), Mahfouz Taysir was a former officer in “Military Intelligence Branch 215.” He was reportedly involved in severe human rights abuses in the Mezzeh and Kafr Souseh areas of Damascus. He was arrested during a security operation, and authorities accused him of forcibly disappearing more than 200 people during his tenure with the Assad government’s security agencies.
Thus, the viral video being circulated with the claim that Iran exposed and detained Khamenei’s bodyguard is not related to Iran at all. It shows the arrest aftermath of Taysir Mahfouz in Syria nearly a year ago.
It is worth noting that on March 1 this year, Iran’s state news agency IRNA confirmed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint Israeli‑U.S. strike.
