Old videos related to the Syrian war shared as recent visuals of violent clashes in Afghanistan - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
August 20, 2021
Multiple videos are circulating on social media claiming it as the recent visuals of violent clashes in Afghanistan. A video is being shared on social media claiming it as the visuals of the Taliban taking control over the Presidential Palace in Kabul. Another social media user shared another video claiming it as the visuals of Afghan citizens firing bullets towards the Taliban. Let’s verify the claims made in the posts.
Claim: Videos showing the recent visuals of violent clashes in Afghanistan.
Fact: The videos shared in the post are old and related to the Syrian war. These videos shows the clashes between Syrian troops and rebel groups, not the Taliban. These videos have nothing to do with the ongoing violence in Afghanistan. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Video-1:
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, similar visuals were found in a video published by the ‘Orient TV’ YouTube channel on 29 March 2019. This video was published on YouTube with the title, “Unforgettable moments from the Syrian revolution, the liberation of Idlib”.
When we searched for more information using these keywords, a video with similar visuals was found in the ‘Al Jazeera’ article published on 29 March 2015. This article reported it as the visuals of Syrian rebel groups capturing the Idlib city from Syrian troops. According to the article, the Syrian rebel groups including the al-Nusra Front, Jund al-Aqsa, Jaish al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq, Ajnad al-Sham, and Faynad al-Sham had captured Idlib city in March 2015. Reporting the same, the France 24 news website published an article on 30 March 2015. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the video shared in the post is an old one and not related to the ongoing violence in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Video-2:
On reverse image search, a video with similar visuals was found to be published by the ‘WarClashes’ YouTube channel on 20 April 2014. This video was published on YouTube with the title, “Heavy Clashes During the Battle for Al-Ramouseh Aleppo | Syria War 2014”. This video reported it as the visuals of Syrian rebel groups clashing with the Syrian army in Al-Ramouseh district, Syria. So, it can be confirmed that the video shared in the post is old and not related to the ongoing violence in Afghanistan.
To sum it up, old videos related to the Syrian war clashes were shared as the recent visuals of violent clashes in Afghanistan.