Claim: A video shows an Afghan sniper targeting Pakistani soldiers amid the recent escalation between the two neighbours in October 2025.
Fact: This clip is not related to the recent deadly clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan as it surfaced as early as May 2025.
On 17 October, an X user posted a video (archive) that apparently showed an Afghan sniper targeting Pakistani soldiers amid the recent escalation between the two countries. The user wrote: “Afghan forces have started returning fire in Paktia and Arghun, targeting Pakistan Army positions.
Sniper”.
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 this clip is not linked to the recent deadly border clashes between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
On 9 May, an X user posted the same video (archive) as the one in the claim. The post’s description reads:
“𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓: TTP has released a video of the ambush on Pakistani Army personal that took place in the Shakai area of South Waziristan. TTP used what looks like a sniper with thermal imaging or infrared (IR) camera to take out PA soldiers.”
The caption then lists the names of Pakistani soldiers, seemingly killed and injured in this attack. The visual below shows a side-by-side comparison of the frame of the footage in the claim that matches the clip posted in May 2025:
Comparison of keyframes from the video in the claim with the post sharing the same clip in May 2025.
Furthermore, at the top right of the X video from May 2025, the text “الخندق عمليات” appears alongside “TTP”. This literally translates to “Al-Khandaq Operations” or according to Google Translate, it states, “TTP Trench Operations” as shown below:
Translation of text through Google Translate.
Al-Khandaq is a spring offensive launched by the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) against the Pakistan Army, according to a March 2025 post by Khorasan Diary, a news organisation that provides real-time reporting on militant groups. The post said that according to TTP’s statement about its offensive, the group would deploy “well-trained fighters equipped with modern weaponry will be deployed to carry out attacks including targeted attacks, guerrilla raids, suicide and sniper attacks.” This suggested that the text embedded in the X clip from May 2025 was probably referring to one of the attacks from the Al-Khandaq offensive by the TTP.
Another X user posted an extended version of the same video on 10 May. The caption here also links this footage to the apparent TTP attack on Pakistan Army soldiers in South Waziristan.
An Instagram user also posted the same video on 9 May and linked it to the TTP attacking Pakistan Army personnel.
Similarly, this clip also appeared on Reddit on 10 May, with a caption stating: “TTP Militants attack Pakistani Security forces in South Waziristan region (Source: Reposted by @Natsecjeff on Twitter)”.
All the above posts link this footage to TTP’s apparent attack on Pakistan’s security forces. Although Soch Fact Check could not verify whether the video shows a TTP attack on security personnel, the fact that it appeared almost six months ago confirms it is unrelated to the recent clashes.
Soch Fact Check therefore rates the claim false.
Virality
Claims sharing this video on X appeared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Instagram here.
Conclusion: The video of a sniper targeting security personnel is not connected to the recent escalation between Afghanistan and Pakistan as it appeared as early as May 2025.
Background image in cover photo: Anadolu Agency
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