Claim: A video shows Pakistan Army soldiers, stationed on a cliff, being blown up by Afghan forces amid their retaliatory strikes against Pakistan.
Fact: The clip is not linked to the Afghanistan-Pakistan clashes in October 2025 as it appeared online as early as December 2021.
On 12 October, an X user posted a video (archive) purportedly showing Pakistan Army soldiers, who were stationed on a cliff, being targeted and blown up by Afghan forces. “A video of Pakistan-Afghanistan clashes surfaced in which Pakistani soldiers were seen flying after the retaliatory attack of the Afghan Taliban,” the description of the post states.
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 10 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 Afghanistan-Pakistan clashes.
In March 2022, an X user posted a video (archive) with the caption that reads: “Breaking News
A Taliban checkpoint in Wakhan district of Badakhshan province was targeted by Resistance Front forces”. This clip matches the one in the claim, confirming it is not related to the recent clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A Facebook user also posted the same video in March 2022 here (archive).
Reverse searches also yielded a fact-check (archive) by Misbar, an Arab fact-checking platform, from April 2024, titled [translated from Arabic via Google Translate], “The video is old and does not show the Transitional Council forces targeting a Houthi site recently.” This article debunked the same video when it was misleadingly linked to Houthi sites targeted in Yemen. Misbar’s article shared this footage (archive) to debunk the claim, which is available on YouTube and was posted on 3 February 2022.
Soch Fact Check analysed the above YouTube clip, titled [translated from Arabic via Google Translate]: “The National Army’s most powerful artillery strike targeted a Houthi leader and a number of his companions on the Sirwah front.” The keyframes from this video match scenes from the footage in the claim.
Moreover, further reverse searches yielded the earliest instance of the same video; it was posted on Facebook in December 2021 (archive).
The fact that this footage has appeared as early as December 2021 confirms that it predates the recent clashes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, rates the claim false.
Virality
The X post garnered 66,900 views and was liked 1,900 times.
The clip was also shared on X here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Facebook here, here, and here.
It also appeared on Instagram here. And on YouTube here.
Conclusion: The video does not show Pakistani soldiers being targeted on a mountain by Afghan forces amid Afghanistan’s retaliatory strikes against Pakistan on 11 October. It appeared online as early as December 2021 and, therefore, is not connected to the recent Afghanistan-Pakistan clashes.
Background image in cover photo: The Guardian
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