On October 25, 2024, the Iranian-Swedish political scientist and Middle East expert Trita Parsi claimed that an American bomber took off from Swedish soil. He adds that the plane “now appears to be helping Israel’s war effort”.
But the claim is not true. The plane was not a bomber but a tanker. Neither it nor any other US Air Force tanker had taken off from Sweden.
Parsi also writes in the post on X that Sweden joined NATO without a Riksdag vote – also a false claim.
SVT Nyheter has been in contact with Trita Parsi, who writes in an email that he has deleted the post after receiving information about the review. He declined to comment further over the weekend.
Spread further by USA expert
The claim about the bomber was widely circulated and spread further, including on political scientist and US expert Frida Stranne’s account on X.
Shortly after SVT Nyheter contacted her, the re-publication of Parsi’s post is gone. Stranne claims she was unaware of the publication on the platform.
“I did, however, share a screenshot of the original message (and a post from Trita about another issue) on my Instagram which I deleted after a few hours when I realized it might be incorrect,” she also writes.