Fact Check: Old photos passed off as images from recent Kabul airport blast
A bomb blast near Kabul airport in Afghanistan killed nearly 150 Afghans and 13 US troops and left dozens wounded on 26 August. Amidst this, two photos reportedly showing the explosion is circulating on social media.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 29 Aug 2021 5:19 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A bomb blast near Kabul airport in Afghanistan killed nearly 150 Afghans and 13 US troops and left dozens wounded on 26 August. Amidst this, two photos reportedly showing the explosion is circulating on social media.
These images were shared by multiple news channels and social media users. Manjinder Singh Sirsa, the national spokesperson of Shiromani Akali Dal, tweeted one of the images. So did Sudhir Chaudhary, the editor-in-chief and CEO of Zee News. However, he later issued a correction saying the photos were old.
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Fact Check
The claim is false. The photos are not the 26 August blast near Kabul airport.
Image 1
NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found the same picture in a Daily Mail report from 16 August 2021. It was credited to Getty Images. The image description said the photo was taken on 16 August. It is captioned, "US soldiers stand guard as in the background Afghan people wait at the Kabul airport in Kabul on August 16, 2021, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war, as thousands of people mobbed the city's airport trying to flee the group's feared hardline brand of Islamist rule."
Evidently, the viral image was taken on 16 August and is not linked to the blast at Kabul airport on 26 August.
Image 2
NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found the same photo in a report by IBTimes from 10 August 2015. The report said the photo was taken when a blast was reported at the entrance of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in 2015.
Evidently, it is an old photo from 2015 and unrelated to the 26 August Kabul blasts.
Thus, neither of the two viral photos is linked to the 26 August blast near Kabul airport. Hence, the claim is false.
