FACT CHECK: Is gun-wielding minor girl part of anti-Taliban forces in Panjshir?
A video of a minor girl wearing a colorful headscarf and firing from a machine gun is viral on social media.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 6 Sep 2021 9:30 AM GMT
HYDERABAD: A video of a minor girl wearing a colorful headscarf and firing from a machine gun is viral on social media. Users claim that this video shows an act of resistance against the Taliban in Panjshir, Afghanistan.
Zee Hindustan, a news channel tweeted the video. "Innocent the girl took up arms against Taliban!" reads the description.
A Facebook news page called Kashmir News Service shared the video too with a title, "Viral video of Talibani kid girl"
FACT CHECK:
The claim is false. This is not a recent video.
NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found that the video is at least a year old. The same video was found on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube from 2020. The video was posted on Jan 26, 2020, on YouTube, Jan 28, 2020 on Twitter and on Jan 30, 2020, on Facebook.
While NewsMeter could not independently verify the location or the reasoning behind the video, it is safe to ascertain that the video is not linked to the violence taking place in Panjshir, Afghanistan.
Clearly, the claim is false.
