News Channels Air Video Game Footage as 'Pak Airforce Attacking Panjshir'

The video from a video game called 'Arma-3'.

A video game simulation of a game called ARMA 3 was shared by news channels as Pakistan attacking the resistance forces in Panjshir.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video which shows a plane being shot down has been shared by multiple news channels claiming it to be the evidence of the fact that 'Pakistan is involved in the fight in Panjshir', which is the last standing bastion in Afghanistan.

The video, which is actually from a video game called 'ARMA 3', has been shared as conflicted news reports emerge about Taliban capturing the Panjshir Valley.

While Taliban claims that they have gained control, the resistance forces maintain that they are "present in all strategic positions across the valley to continue the fight."

CLAIM

Playing the clip from the video game, Republic TV claimed that the video confirmed Pakistan's role in the fight in Panjshir. They attributed the video to 'Hasti TV' and claimed that this proves that the Pakistan Army is supporting the Taliban against Northern Alliance in Panjshir.

An archived version of the video can be found here. 

(Source: Republic TV/Screenshot)

The video also also played by Times Now's new channel Times Now Navbharat with the same claim. We also found this video on the Facebook page of 'Hasti TV', who was credited for these visuals.

An archived version can be found here.

(Source: Times Now Navbharat/Screenshot)

As per Google translate, while sharing the visuals, they too wrote that the video showed Pakistani military video flying over Panjshir. The video has now been taken down. An archived version of the same can be found here.

WHAT WE FOUND

Using the InVID We-Verify Google Chrome extension, we extracted some keyframes from the viral video posted by Hasti TV and found that the video was also posted by a Twitter user called Faran Jeffery (Natsecjeff).

According to Jeffery's Twitter bio, he is the deputy director of UK-based Islamic Theology of Counter-Terrorism (ITCT).

Under the tweet with the video, we found a comment by Jeffery where he said that the clip was from a video game, and other users pointed out that it was from a game called ARMA 3.

We conducted keyword searches for the game with screenshots of the footage from the viral video and found the link to a video posted in January on a YouTube channel called "Compared Combat".

The video, which was posted on 25 January, had the sequence as the viral video starting from 1:40.

A comparison of the viral video with a zoomed-in version of the viral video shows that it is taken from the same video game. The same video was also uploaded on other YouTube channels.

Comparison of viral video with a simulation of ArmA 3. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

This is not the first time that the footage from the video game has been used out of context. Earlier last year, a part of the game was used to claim that Armenia shot down an Azerbaijani MiG-25 in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. You can read our fact-check here.

Earlier in May, when Israel had launched an attack on Palestine, the same video clip was shared with a claim that it showed the "Israel Defense System". The claim was fact-checked by Reuters.

Evidently, an ARMA 3 video game simulation was shared with a false claim that it showed Pakistan getting involved in the fight between Taliban and the resistance forces in Panjshir.

The story was first debunked by BoomLive.

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