We came across the following post on X:

Posted by an account called @GoalCambodia with the display name “ThailandStartedTheWar”, the post purports to show F-16 fighter jets being deployed by Thailand to attack Cambodian military targets. With the hashtag #ThailandStartedTheWar” in both English and Khmer, the post appears designed to sway sentiment on the war, placing blame on Thailand for starting the conflict.

When we took a closer look at the account, we saw that @GoalCambodia had similar hashtags in their account description. Translated, the hashtags say that Thailand opened fire on Cambodia first and Cambodia was defending itself.

A reverse image search reveals that the photo in question is not recent and not related to any current military activity between Thailand and Cambodia.

The image has previously been published on the Royal Thai Air Force’s Facebook page, and was posted on 16 June 2025, a week before the conflict had started. Based on the text in the original post, we can conclude that the picture was taken from a joint-training exercise between the Thai and Indonesian Air Forces, and not from the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia.

While there are reports that Thailand has launched airstrikes on Cambodian military targets, the claim that the image shows F16 fighter jets deployed to attack Cambodia is false. Through the use of malinformation – where an authentic image is removed from its original context in an attempt to mislead, @GoalCambodia appears intent on mobilising public support for Cambodia by positioning Thailand as the aggressor in the conflict.