Claim: Salman Ahmad, a close aide of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan, posted a photo of a secret document claiming another cypher was leaked.
Fact: The cypher was posted by a parody account of the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), or DG ISPR, in July 2023. Its informal language, spelling errors and lack of diplomatic tone suggest that it is not an official communication or cable between Pakistan and the United States.
Since his ouster, former prime minister Imran Khan has repeatedly mentioned a cypher as evidence of a conspiracy to remove his government.
The purported cypher, sent to Islamabad last year by Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, recounted a meeting involving US State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Pakistani envoy Asad Majeed Khan.
US-based publication The Intercept, claiming to have obtained a copy of the cable, reproduced its content on 9 August 2023, suggesting that the US raised objections to Imran Khan’s foreign policy regarding the Ukraine conflict and pressured the Pakistani establishment to remove him.
Fact or Fiction:
On 10 August 2023, Salman Ahmad (@sufisal) posted a leaked document on Twitter claiming that another cypher had been leaked.
Soch Fact Check found, through reverse-image search, that the photo was first posted by Inter-Services Parody Relations (@_DGISPR) on Twitter on 19 July 2023.
“Rawalpindi, 19 July 2023: On special instructions of Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) Asim Munir Bajwa, Pakistan Army has released unredacted version of Cipher I-0678 addressed to former COAS. Pak Army was successful in removing former PM as per wishes of US government,” the tweet reads.
The account describes itself as a “parody account” and, “not the official ISPR [account]”. Created in June 2021, it is followed by 28,200 people.
The official Twitter account of the Director General Inter-Services Public Relations is @OfficialDGISPR. It was created in December 2016 and has 6.2 million followers. It also has a grey verification check mark, which indicates that the account represents a government/multilateral organisation or a government/multilateral official.
Soch Fact Check also examined the content of the cypher and found several errors that suggest it cannot be an official communication between Pakistan and the US. Here are our following observations:
- The use of informal language and phrases like “doggy style,” “LOL,” “sash,” and “Come on Doggy, whose your daddy?” is highly informal and inappropriate for diplomatic communication.
- The text contains multiple spelling and grammatical errors, such as “Aftans” instead of “Affairs,” “Anny” instead of “Any,” “Intan Khan” instead of “Imran Khan,” and “whose your daddy?” instead of “who’s your daddy?”
- The overall tone of the text is unprofessional and disrespectful, which would be unacceptable in official diplomatic communication.
- The purported cable includes personal opinions and derogatory remarks about individuals, such as referring to the ex-chief of the army staff as a “duffer” and making inappropriate comments about him and former premier Imran Khan.
- The content jumps between different topics and lacks clarity and coherence, which is not typical of official diplomatic communication.
It is pertinent to note that Soch Fact Check is not investigating the authenticity of the cypher The Intercept mentions in its story, nor is it investigating claims of whether the US pressured Pakistan to remove Imran Khan from power.
Virality:
The claim was also found here on Twitter.
The tweet by @sufisal gained significant traction with 59,300 views, 762 likes, 360 retweets, and 22 quote tweets.
Conclusion: The secret document being referred to as a cypher between Pakistan and US by Salman Ahmad was actually posted by a parody account in July 2023.