Media Outlets Air Old Clips in Recent Bulletins as Situation in Panjshir Valley

The visuals are old and could be traced back to 2020 and July 2021 at least.

Media outlets aired old visuals in a recent bulletin on the situation in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Amid the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, media outlets such as Republic Bharat, India Today, Times Now and ABP News ran visuals claiming to show how the Taliban was ousted in Panjshir Valley by the Resistance forces.

However, we found that the visuals aired by the channels are old and could be traced back to 2020 and July 2021 at least.

CLAIM

The bulletin aired by Republic Bharat was uploaded on a Facebook account called 'Public TV' and the visuals being debunked in this article can be seen from 01:09-03:07 minutes.

The anchor can be heard saying that the visuals show how the Taliban was washed away in Panjshir Valley by the Resistance forces. An archived version of the channel's YouTube upload on 23 August can be viewed here.

You can view the archived version here.

(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)

News channels such as ABP News and Times Now also aired the visuals in a recent bulletin on Panjshir Valley with the latter claiming that the video was "posted by resistance leaders".

You can view the archived version here.

(Source: YouTube/ Screenshot)

You can view the archived version here.

(Source: Twitter/ Screenshot)

Another visual was aired by India Today and Republic Bharat in the their bulletins on the current situation in Afghanistan.

You can view the archived version here.

(Source: Twitter/ Screenshot)

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We found that both the videos are old with one of them tracing back to 2020, and other to July 2021 at least. Let's take a look at them one by one.

VIDEO 1

We found that a Twitter user had suggested that the video is old and shared a screenshot of a post from 2020.

A Twitter user suggested that the video is from 2020.

(Source: Twitter/ Screenshot)

A Facebook account by the name 'Egy Army-Police' had uploaded the video in May 2020.

A Facebook account had uploaded the video in May 2020.

(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)

Further, we also found some tweets carrying the viral visuals that were shared in March 2020 and the archived links can be viewed here and here.

While we haven't been able to independently verify the location of the video, however, aforementioned posts show that these are not recent visuals.

VIDEO 2

We found an article published by a website called Sahafaa on 17 August that mentioned that the incident was from Yemen.

With the help of relevant keywords, we found that the video was uploaded on YouTube on 31 July and was titled as press briefing for 'Operation Al-Nasr Al-Mubin Phase 2 - Purging the districts of Nata' and Numan' in Yemen's Al-Bayda.

The visuals aired by India Today and Republic Bharat can be viewed from 15:55 minutes in the YouTube video.

The video could be traced back to 31 July at least.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Meanwhile, in the Panjshir Valley, Ahmad Massoud is keeping alive the resistance against the insurgents.

"No matter what happens, my mujahideen fighters and I will defend Panjshir as the last bastion of Afghan freedom. Our morale is intact. We know from experience what awaits us," Massoud wrote in an op-ed that was published in The Washington Post on 18 August.

Evidently, media outlets aired old visuals in a recent bulletin on the situation in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley.

(This story was first debunked by Alt News.)

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