Viral footage showing a Pakistani jet in Afghanistan is fake
Islamabad has denied the charges.
(Reuters) - Footage from a military videogame showing the shooting of a plane has been shared online, with some social media users miscaptioning the content as showing an attack to an actual Pakistani plane in the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan.
“Resistance forces firing on a Pakistani jet in #Panjshir Afghanistan. #FreeAfghanistan”, one of many iteration on Twitter reads.
The exact same sequence, in higher resolution, is viewable in a clip uploaded to YouTube in August 2020 (around timestamp 1:43, a longer version here starts around timestamp 00:15 ). The user referred to ARMA3, a military simulator, in the description.
In May, Reuters debunked other footage from ARMA3 that had been mislabeled video as if showing the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Following days of fighting between the Taliban and the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA) in the Panjshir Valley, the last part of Afghanistan still holding out against their rule, the Taliban claimed victory on Monday.
Washington has accused Pakistan of backing the Taliban in the group s two-decade fight against the US-backed government in Kabul. Islamabad has denied the charges.
Therefore, the clip being shared online is not authentic footage but was created with a military simulation video game. It is not linked to the fighting in the Panjshir Valley between the Taliban and the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan.
