-
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 iteration on Twitter reads here . Other examples can be seen ( here , here ) and on Facebook ( here , here ).
The exact same sequence, in higher resolution, is viewable in a clip uploaded to YouTube in August 2020 bit.ly/3DTziRI (around timestamp 1:43, a longer version here starts around timestamp 00:15 ). The user referred to ARMA3, a military simulator, in the description ( here ).
In May, Reuters debunked other footage from ARMA3 that had been mislabeled video as if showing the conflict between Israel and Hamas ( here )
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 ( here ).
Washington has accused Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of backing the Taliban in the group's two-decade fight against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. Islamabad has denied the charges ( here ).
VERDICT
Miscaptioned. The clip 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.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.