Egyptian TV Anchor Mistakes Video Game for Russian Gun Camera Footage

It’s not easy to find anything to laugh about in Syria, but Egyptian TV host Ahmed Moussa managed to pull it off. He used a recent show to sing the praises of Russian intervention in Syria, but illustrated it with footage that came from a five-year-old video game. And not a very good video game, by the look of it:

The Washington Post transcribed Moussa’s remarks: “Let me tell you about Russia. Russia does not play around. America was just playing. It wasn’t trying to hit Daesh. If anything, they were patting Daesh on the back, funding and arming them. The Russians did it. Yes, this is the Russian army, this is Russian weaponry, this is Putin. Yes, they are countering terrorism, truly countering it. Now you will see a terrifying video, terrifying.”

The terrifying video of the Russians not playing around turned out to be a clip of someone playing a Russian video game called “Apache Air Assault.”

“Did you all see the precision?” squealed Moussa, unaware of what he was actually showing. “These are terrorists and militias and tanks, as you can see. These are Daesh fighters, and they have some weapons. And see there’s this car, but in moments — gone.”

The Post rounded up some mocking Tweets from Moussa’s audience:

Tonight Ahmed Moussa will air a report on Cairo traffic pic.twitter.com/D167csZ5i9

— Basil El-Dabh الضبع (@basildabh) October 12, 2015

The real punch line is that, contrary to Moussa’s hyperventilation, the Russians are not putting much effort into bombing Daesh (the Islamic State). In fact, the European Union just castigated them for hitting “moderate” fighters instead of the Islamic State, even as Russia doubled the number of air strikes it’s conducting in Syria, and the non-ISIS insurgents were sent fresh shipments of American weapons, including anti-tank missiles.