Claim: A video shows a Pakistan Army post captured by Afghan forces in recent border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Fact: The claim is false as the video is old and was shared on social media in the past too. Previously, it was linked to the September 2023 attacks in Chitral, while some reports date the video back to the 2009 attacks in South Waziristan.
On 22 March 2023, X (formerly Twitter) user Baba Banaras posted a video (archive) with the caption, “Video: A Pakistan Army post captured by Afghan forces in ongoing border clashes”. The minute-long video shows a bunch of armed men throwing stones at Pakistani flags painted on the walls of a dilapidated building.
The video surfaced amid clashes at the Pak-Afghan border. Pakistan launched airstrikes in Afghanistan this month, in the Paktika and Khost provinces, killing eight people, including children. The Pakistan military called it a “retaliation attack” after a suicide bombing attack on 16 March targeted its security forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. After Pakistan’s attack on 18 March, Afghanistan claimed to have fired across the border, injuring four civilians and three military personnel in Pakistan.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse image search on the video keyframes. The results on Google led to a longer version of the clip posted on 12 September 2023 on X. According to its caption, the video shows “Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters roaming around the destroyed #PakArmy HQ in #Chitral”.
In the longer clip, armed men can be seen entering an abandoned and dilapidated building which has the Pakistan Army’s official emblem on the entrance. The video was widely shared across social media and linked to September 2023, when the TTP attacked two military checkposts in the Chitral area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In these clashes, four military officers and 12 TTP fighters were killed.
However, Iftikhar Firdous – journalist and founder of The Khorasan Diary rebuffed the video on 12 September 2023, saying it does not show Chitral but is actually from the 2009 attacks in Sararogha, South Waziristan.
To further investigate, Soch Fact Check conducted a keyword search on Google, which led to several news reports from January 2008 saying the Taliban attacked the Sararogha Fort in South Waziristan. However, there is no evidence to confirm that the alleged video is from the same time and shows Sararogha Fort.
Soch Fact Check could not independently verify the origin of the video and the location shown in it, but it is clear that it predates the recent clashes at the Pak-Afghan border in 2024.
Virality
On X, the video was shared here and here.
It can also be seen here on Instagram and here and here on YouTube.
Conclusion: A video showing armed men seizing a Pakistani post is not from the recent clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It predates the attack and has been circulating on social media as early as September 2023.
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Background image in cover photo: Legalversity
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