Old Photo of Woman Recruit in Somali Army Passed Off as Ilhan Omar
The photo is actually of a woman recruit of the Somali army, clicked in 1978.
CLAIM
An old photo of a woman holding a gun in Somalia is being shared widely on social media with the claim that it is of Minnesota Democratic US Representative Ilhan Omar.
The photo is being shared on Twitter with the claim that Omar received training at an Al Qaeda camp in Somalia and that the Congresswoman is now trying to get the photo blocked from the internet.
The photo is also going viral on Facebook with a similar claim.
The US Congresswoman is currently in the news for her face-off with Indian journalist Aarti Tikoo Singh at the US House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on ‘Human Rights in South Asia’. Tikoo has accused Omar of gagging her at the hearing.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The Quint could verify that the woman in the viral photo is not of Ilhan Omar but is an old photo by Associated Press which shows a woman recruit of the Somali Army checking her automatic weapon at a military training campus at Halane, Mogadishu.
WHAT WE FOUND
On conducting a reverse image search, we were guided to the original photo clicked for AP by photographer Tomkins on 25 February 1978. The photo was submitted on 8 February 2016.
You can view the original photo here.
The original photo was clicked in 1978, while Omar was born in 1982. This rules out any possibility that the woman in the photo is Omar.
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