Claim: A video shows a convoy of Afghan Taliban fighters moving towards Pakistan’s border amid significant clashes between the two countries.
Fact: The clip appeared online as early as December 2024 and is, therefore, unrelated to the October 2025 conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
On 15 October 2025, X (formerly Twitter) account @MeghUpdates posted (archive) a video showing armed fighters of Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government allegedly moving towards the Pakistani border in military vehicles, including Humvees, while bearing the group’s flag.
The video — which surfaced amid the most significant clashes between the two neighbours since Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 — was accompanied by the following caption:
“🚨 BAD NEWS for Pakistan 🇵🇰 Afghan forces are reportedly advancing toward the Pakistan border”.
Soch Fact Check has previously debunked claims by @MeghUpdates here, here, and here.
Pakistan, Afghanistan clashes
On the night of 11 October 2025, the forces of Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government launched (archive) an attack on Pakistan’s military posts along the border.
After the clashes, the Pakistan Army’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said over “200 Taliban and affiliated terrorists have been neutralised while the number of injured is much higher”. It also confirmed losing 23 soldiers, saying 29 others were wounded.
The ISPR added that the defence was a response to “an unprovoked attack on Pakistan” by “Afghan Taliban and Indian-sponsored Fitna-al-Khawarij”, a term the government uses to refer to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban.
Noting that the attacks came during the visit of Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to India, which is “the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the region”, the statement urged the “Taliban government to take immediate and verifiable actions to neutralize the terrorist groups, inter alia, FAK [Fitna-al-Khawarij], FAH [Fitna-al-Hindustan] and ISKP/ Daesh operating from their territory”.
“Fitna-al-Hindustan” is a term the government uses to refer to the “terrorist organisations in Balochistan”, according to Dawn.
Interestingly, Muttaqi also referred to Pakistan-administered Kashmir as part of India in a recent joint statement issued by Kabul and New Delhi — a move that caused concern according to the Foreign Office.
On the other hand, Afghanistan claimed to have killed “58 Pakistani soldiers in overnight border operations” and wounded at least 30. Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid admitted that nine of their “fighters had died and between 16 and 18 people had been injured”.
In this regard, US President Donald Trump said, “I hear there’s a war now going on between Pakistan and Afghanistan. […] I’m good at solving wars, I’m good at making peace.”
Pakistan says Afghanistan facilitates TTP
Islamabad has long alleged that Afghanistan harbours armed groups and facilitates the TTP’s attacks inside Pakistan, accusations that Kabul has denied.
The 11 October clashes came shortly after Afghanistan accused (archive) Pakistan “of launching airstrikes on its capital Kabul”, with its defence ministry saying Islamabad “violated the air space” and bombed a “civilian market” near the border.
At that time, Pakistan’s FO did not directly acknowledge the alleged attack but said the country’s counterterrorism moves were “legitimate self-defence against militants operating from Afghan soil”.
However, Reuters quoted a Pakistani security official as saying TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud’s vehicle was targeted in the Kabul airstrike but Taliban spokesperson Mujahid denied the claim in an interview with Anadolu Agency.
According to Dawn, Pakistan Army spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said, “Afghanistan is being used as a base of operations for carrying out terrorism in Pakistan. There is also evidence of this.” He, however, did not confirm or deny airstrikes in Kabul were carried out by the military.
Al Jazeera reported that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said “enough is enough” and issued a warning to Afghanistan “of consequences for continued assaults on Pakistani forces”. The continuous fighting “prompted calls for restraint from Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia”, it added.
In the wee hours on 15 October, however, “new clashes erupted” between Pakistan and Afghanistan “at the joint border, with both sides accusing the other of having begun the hostilities”, marking the second time this month that fighting started.
The ISPR said Afghan Taliban attacked “four locations in Spin Boldak area of Balochistan” and “destroyed Pak-Afghan Friendship Gate on their side”, alongside a similar one at “Pakistani border posts in Kurram Sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa”. In total, 40-50 “Afghan Taliban and Fitna-al-Khawarij fighters” were killed or “suspected to have been killed” and “many injured”, it added.
Mujahid alleged that Pakistan launched the Spin Boldak attack, with 12 civilians killed and over 100 injured. “Multiple” Pakistani soldiers were killed, he asserted.
Ceasefire between Pakistan, Afghanistan
Later in the day, the state-run Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) reported that “Afghanistan was seeking a ceasefire on the border near the village of Chaman where the fighting was concentrated”, according to The Washington Post (archive).
Since 10 October, “at least 18 people have been killed and more than 360 wounded” on the Afghanistan side, Arab News reported, quoting a statement issued by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)
The two countries have agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire effective as of 6 pm on 15 October, according to the latest reports.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video and found it to be old and unrelated to the October 2025 clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
We found the video appearing in multiple X posts from 27 December 2024 (archived here, here, and here).
It was also uploaded (archive) as a video on Kanal13, an Azerbaijani outlet on YouTube, on 28 December 2024, with the title, “Taliban amasses army on Pakistan border, starts military operation.”
A screenshot from the same video was published on the SOFREP (Special Operations Forces Report) website as “Pic of the Day,” with the title “Afghan Taliban in ‘Borrowed’ Humvees and an M117 Armored Security Vehicle Near the Border of Pakistan.”
The visual is accompanied by the following description:
“A convoy of Taliban fighters showcases U.S.-made vehicles left behind during the Afghanistan withdrawal, now a stark symbol of shifting power near the Afghan-Pakistan border.”
The December 2024 clashes
In December 2024, too, Pakistan and Afghanistan engaged in cross-border clashes.
“Afghan Taliban forces have targeted ‘several points’ in neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defence said, days after Pakistani aircraft carried out aerial bombardments inside the country,” Al Jazeera reported on 28 December 2024.
In its report the same day, DW said the Afghan Defence Ministry’s statement did not specifically refer to Pakistan but said the strikes took place “beyond the ‘hypothetical line’”, which is a term used by Afghan authorities to refer to the disputed Durand Line.
According to the aforementioned Al Jazeera report, the Durand Line was “drawn by British colonial authorities in the 19th century through the mountainous and often lawless tribal belt between what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan”.
The state-run Radio Pakistan said on 28 December that a group of 20-25 TTP fighters tried to infiltrate the country twice “from two locations in Kurram and North Waziristan by using Afghan Taliban border posts last night”, but the attempt was foiled.
“The sources confirmed heavy losses on the Afghan side, with casualties of over fifteen terrorists and Afghan Taliban fighters,” it added.
Pakistan bombs TTP ‘camps’ in Afghanistan
On 25 December, Dawn’s report citing security officials said Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets “bombed four locations, said to be camps of the banned TTP, in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province, killing and wounding several suspected terrorists”.
Afghan Defence Ministry spokesperson Enayatullah Khowarazmi, however, claimed Pakistan’s “bombing targeted civilians”. DW’s report on the clashes also quoted the United Nations Children’s Fund as saying “at least 20 children were among those reportedly killed in the airstrikes”.
France 24 quoted Taliban spokesperson Mujahid as saying that “four areas in the Barmal district of eastern Paktika province” of Afghanistan were targeted by Pakistan” and that “the total number of dead is 46”, with another six wounded.
A day prior, on 24 December, Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Ambassador (r) Mohammad Sadiq, had led a delegation to meet Kabul’s Acting Interior Minister Sirajudddin Haqqani and Foreign Minister Muttaqi “to resume diplomatic dialogue after a year-long hiatus”, according to Dawn.
Islamabad’s retaliatory airstrikes on 24 December 2024 “came days after the TTP claimed responsibility for killing 16 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border”, according to Arab News.
In a 21 December statement, the ISPR said a group of TTP fighters had tried to attack a security checkpost in Makeen, South Waziristan, the night before. “The attempt was effectively thwarted by [our] troops and in [the] ensuing fire exchange, eight Khawarij were sent to hell,” it added, noting that 16 soldiers had “embraced Shahadat [martyrdom]”.
According to Voice of America (VOA), which cited a Pakistani security official, “the militant attack also left eight soldiers wounded”, of whom “several” were in critical condition.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim circulating here and here on Facebook. It was also shared here, here, and here on X.
Multiple Indian accounts also regurgitated the claim; these posts can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Indian news outlets also perpetuated the claim on their websites. Among them were Newsfirst Kannada, Bharat24, Pragativadi, Republic World, and VTV Gujarati.
Conclusion: The clip appeared online as early as December 2024 and is, therefore, unrelated to the October 2025 conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Background image in cover photo: Mohammad Husaini
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