Claim: An image of a large gathering at a funeral apparently shows Khalil Ur Rahman Haqqani’s funeral.
Fact: The claim is false as the picture is old and predates Haqqani’s killing. The actual image was available on the internet as early as 2021 and likely shows the funeral of former senator Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar, also known as Usman Lala, in Balochistan.
On 13 December 2024, a user on X (formerly Twitter) posted an image with the caption:
“Everyone who went to Haji Khalil Al-Rahman Haqqani’s funeral is a murtad according to ISIS.
Everyone in this image is a murtad according to ISIS.
They all deserve to be killed according to ISIS.
Then they will say “we are not khawarij” with a straight face.”
The image is an aerial view of a huge crowd gathered in a deserted area for a funeral ceremony.
Khalil Haqqani’s killing in Afghanistan
On 11 December 2024, Afghanistan’s acting Minister for Refugees, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani was killed along with five others in a suicide bombing attack at the Ministry of Refugees in Kabul. The attack was claimed by the ISIS-affiliate group ISIS-K in the Khorasan Province.
Haqqani was the uncle of the current Interior Minister of Afghanistan Sirajuddin Haqqani, and a senior leader of the Haqqani Network, a group that was responsible for a number of violent attacks over the last two decades according to the US State Department.
His killing has been the most high-profile one in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. According to the US Department of the Treasury, Haqqani led and raised funds for military operations. In 2011, he was named a “specially designated global terrorist,” and the US government had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information about him.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check investigated the claim as it appeared to be a huge funeral prayer attended by hundreds of thousands in Kabul. We conducted a reverse image search on Google which led to several posts on social media from June 2021.
On 24 June 2021, a user on X posted the same image with the caption, “So over 100,000 came to Usman Kakar’s funeral in Balochistan yesterday. Mainstream media did not cover it and then they insist the press is free in Pakistan”. The official X accounts of the then Prime Minister Imran Khan and former Minister of Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry are tagged in the caption.
On the same day, another X user posted a picture of this location, albeit from a different angle, with the caption, “If I don’t see this on your mainstream news channels, if I don’t see you mourning his death, if I don’t see you paying tribute to him, nothing on Earth can convince me that you and I are the same. WE ARE NOT! -Usman Lala’s (funeral)”.
On Reddit, the image currently being linked to Haqqani’s funeral was also posted in 2021, with a caption saying that the funeral prayer of Usman Kakar, was one of the largest gatherings in the history of Balochistan attended by “over one hundred thousand Pashtuns, Baloch, and Hazaras”..
Soch Fact Check also found multiple visual evidence posted on social media in June 2021 in which the same landmarks and Kakar’s picture can be seen.
Who was Usman Kakar?
Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar, also known as Usman Lala, was a former senator and regional leader of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) who died on 21 June 2021 in Karachi. He was laid to rest in his hometown in Muslim Bagh, and political leaders across Pakistan had expressed their condolences upon news of his demise.
Kakar’s family, as well as several politicians and activists, claimed that he was murdered and demanded an inquiry. A judicial commission was formed by the Balochistan government but no result was announced. In 2023, United Nations special rapporteurs on human rights asked the Pakistani government to investigate the “unnatural circumstances” of Kakar’s death and his presence on the alleged “Kill List” published by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Virality
On X, the claim with the old image received 32,500 likes, 350 likes and 63 reposts. It was also posted here and here on Facebook.
Conclusion: The image showing a large gathering at the funeral of Khalil Ur Rahman Haqqani is actually from 2021 and shows the funeral of former senator Usman Kakar in Balochistan.
Background image in cover photo: Reuters
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