A 14-second video clip showing armed men pushing a group of people into shipping containers has gone viral with a claim stating that it shows the current situation in Afghanistan's Panjshir.
According to the claim, the video shows The Taliban fighters imprisoning people from Panjshir after claiming victory in the valley. The claim comes in the backdrop of reports talking about atrocities carried out by the Taliban fighters in the province.
However, we found that the viral video was taken from a movie called "The Clouds: A story of Taliban" created by an Afghan filmmaker called Sidiq Abedi.
CLAIM
One Twitter user called Afghanistan Resistance Panjshir valley shared the video with a claim that said, "What is happening in #Panjshir? Humiliation and torture, and any kind of crime imagined in the human mind are taking place in #Panjshir. Hundreds of people were thrown into containers and shot at. Hundreds are missing. Hundreds of people have starved to death in containers."
Other users claimed that the container was put on fire after putting people inside it.
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Photo: Twitter/Screenshot)
The same claim was shared by other users on Twitter, archives of which can be found here and here.
We also found that the video was also shared on Facebook with a caption written in Persian that when translated into English using Google said, "The savage of the devil's army against the civilian people of Panjshir! 270 Panjshiri youths were thrown in a container and later set on fire under the container!"
Archives of more such Facebook posts can be found here, here, and here.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
In the comments section of the video, we found that users were saying that the video was actually from a movie called ‘The Clouds: A story of Taliban’.
We extracted keyframes from the viral video using InVID WeVerify Google Chrome extension and conducted a reverse image search on some of the keyframes using the name of the movie.
It led us to a video published on YouTube on a channel called 'Danish Association' on 29 December 2017, years before The Taliban took over Afghanistan.
The viral video could be found at 47 minutes and 10 seconds.
According to the description of the YouTube video, the movie was directed and scripted by Siddiq Abedi. "The film tells the story of Taliban atrocities from Kabul to the Afghan border in the Amu Darya," the description read.
We compared the screenshots from the viral videos with screenshots of the original movie.
A comparison of the viral video with screenshots from the movie.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
A comparison of the viral video with screenshots from the movie.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
We also checked looked up Siddiq Abedi on Google and found other mentions of him. Abedi, who is an Afghan filmmaker, has made several movies talking about the situation in the country. His movie, ‘A Man’s Desire for A Fifth Wife', got several festival awards and was shown at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI).
The Taliban, after taking over the rest of the country, started a focussed attack on the Panjshir valley. In the past few weeks, they have killed several members and leaders of the National Resistance Force. While the Taliban claims to have taken complete control of Panjshir, the NRF say the resistance will continue.
Evidently, an old video of a movie was shared with a false claim that it showed the current situation in Panjshir, where the Taliban fighters were detaining Afghans in containers.
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