Claim: Video shows Pakistan Army transporting soldiers and military equipment to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border during the recent deadly clashes between the two countries.
Fact: This video is not linked to recent clashes as it is from at least eight years ago.
On 17 October, an X user, well-known for spreading disinformation, posted a video (archive) that apparently showed Pakistan moving its forces and equipment to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border during the recent deadly clashes between the two countries. The screenshot below shows the post making the claim:
An X post claiming that Pakistan transported soldiers and equipment to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border during the recent clashes between the two neighbours.
Afghanistan-Pakistan clashes
Afghan and Pakistani military forces exchanged heavy fire along the border on 11 October, marking a significant escalation between the neighbours.
The clashes reportedly erupted when Afghan troops attacked several Pakistani military posts along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in retaliation for the alleged airstrikes by Pakistan inside its territory on 9 October. Afghanistan accused Pakistan of violating its sovereign territory by carrying out airstrikes in Kabul, a charge that the latter has neither denied nor confirmed.
Soon after, social media users speculated that the airstrike was meant to target Noor Wali Mehsud, the leader of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. It has not been independently verified if he was killed in the attack.
Pakistani forces retaliated against these attacks on 11 October.
Both sides made conflicting claims about the inflicted losses and casualties. Afghan authorities claimed that they had killed 58 Pakistani soldiers whereas Pakistan stated that 23 soldiers had been killed. Pakistan claimed that it had killed more than 200 “Taliban and affiliated terrorists.” But Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Taliban-led government, said that nine Afghan soldiers were killed in the overnight clashes with Pakistan.
Soch Fact Check has not independently verified the casualties on both sides.
Pakistani authorities have long accused the Afghan Taliban government of harbouring the TTP that carries out attacks on Pakistani territory with impunity, a charge denied by Kabul.
Moreover, both countries also claimed to have destroyed each other’s border posts, Reuters reported.
On 15 October, Pakistan and Afghanistan reportedly continued to clash until agreeing to a temporary 48-hour ceasefire on the same day.
According to an AFP report, Afghan officials accused Pakistan of breaking the ceasefire by carrying out strikes inside Afghanistan on 17 October, which killed ten people and injured 12 others.
Then on 19 October, both neighbours agreed to an immediate ceasefire after peace talks in Doha, Qatar while further negotiations were scheduled to be held on 25 October in Istanbul, Turkey.
Although the border crossing between the two countries remains closed, it was only temporarily reopened for the repatriation of Afghan refugee families.
Geo News reported on 20 October that border crossings were likely to reopen. “The sources privy to the matter said that officials from both countries have agreed to reopen the border if no other dispute arises,” the report said.
Peace talks held in Istanbul between the two countries ended on 28 October without a resolution, Reuters reported.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the video and found that it is not linked to the recent clashes between the two countries.
A Facebook user posted a video (archive) in February 2019 with the caption [translated from Spanish into English via Google Translate]: “Colombia mobilises its Armed Forces to the border with Venezuela.” Scenes from this clip — particularly the area and the people standing by to watch the train carrying the equipment pass through — are identical to the video in the claim, indicating it is old and not related to the Afghanistan-Pakistan clashes.
Back then, AFP Fact Check published an article (archive) titled “No, this is not ‘breaking’ footage of Pakistani tanks being transported to the border with India”. It debunked the same footage when it circulated online and claimed to show a train carrying Pakistani equipment to the Indian border in February 2019. AFP found an old extended version of the same clip on YouTube from March 2017 to debunk the claim, and it matched the footage circulating online at the time. “Pakistan Deployed 500+ Battle Tanks Along Indian Border”, reads the description of the YouTube video.
Soch Fact Check reviewed this YouTube video from 2017. The scenes in this clip match the footage from the claim, confirming it predates the recent clashes between the two countries.
On the left is the moment from the video in the claim that matches the YouTube clip from 2017.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, rates the claim false.
Virality
The X post garnered 40,600 views and was liked 763 times.
It also appeared on X here, garnering 8,576 views.
Conclusion: This video does not show the Pakistan Army transporting soldiers and military equipment to the border with Afghanistan during the recent clashes as it appeared as early as March 2017.
Background image in cover photo: Arab News
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