Claim: An image on social media shows a mushroom-shaped smoke rising from the New Kabul Bank suicide blast in Kandahar on 21 March 2024.
Fact: The picture is misleading. It shows the smoke cloud rising from a May 2018 blast in Kandahar when Afghan security forces accidentally detonated explosives while trying to defuse them.
On 21 March 2024, X (formerly Twitter) user @Dukhtar_E_B posted the misleading picture (archived) and said: “According to local sources, there was an explosion in front of the office of the Kabul Bank in the province of #Kandahar.A group of #Taliban near the #KabulBank were gathered when the explosion happened. #Afghanistan #Blast”
The explosion the post mentions is the suicide bombing that took place near the New Kabul Bank in Kandahar, targeting civilians present on site for their salary collection on the morning of 21 March 2024, according to news reports.
Islamic State-Khorasan claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed at least 20 people and injured 50.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted a Google Reverse Image search and found several photos dating back to the May 2018 Kandahar blast that killed at least 18 and wounded 38.
The picture was shared by Tolonews and Pajhwok Afghan News on their X handles on 22 May 2018.
We also found a news report with a picture of the same blast from a different angle that shows a smoke cloud rising behind residential buildings.
A third angle shows the same smoke from an open grass field.
Further, we did not find any reputable news organisation sharing the misleading images alongside reports about the recent New Kabul Bank blast in Kandahar.
Soch Fact Check thus concluded that the X user posted a misleading picture.
Virality
The X post with the misleading picture garnered at least 28,000 views.
The old picture from 2018 was also used by newspapers in 2020 and 2021 here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The image does not show the New Kabul Bank suicide bombing in Kandahar. It’s 6 years old and shows smoke clouds rising from the Kandahar blast in 2018 when security forces tried defusing the bomb but accidentally detonated it.
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Background image in cover photo: Al Jazeera
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