2019 Image Passed off as Photo From Recent Mosque Blast in Kabul

The image is from July 2019, when a suicide bombing took place in Kabul, Afghanistan.

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

An old photograph from 2019, which shows a huge smoke cloud billowing up from a building, was widely shared by several, including a few news organisations, as a photo from the massive explosion that struck a mosque in northern Kabul in Afghanistan on 17 August, during evening prayers.

At least 21 people were killed an 33 were wounded in the explosion, according to an AP report which quoted a Taliban police spokesperson. The Imam of the mosque, Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli, was among those killed, Reuters reported.

CLAIM

News organisations like Mirror Now, The Times of India, were among the ones that shared the old picture. RSS' Organiser, too, used the picture in its tweet about the incident.

Quint Hindi also used the image in its article about the incident.

Organiser shared the image as an image from the recent blast.

Mirror Now shared the image as an image from the recent blast.

The Times of India shared the image as an image from the recent blast.

Pakistan's Geo News also used the image. Several other archives can be viewed here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

On conducting a simple reverse image search on the picture, we came across an article on VOX, an American news website, from 2019, which had carried the same image.

The image caption mentioned that it showed a scene of bombing in Kabul on 1 July 2019. The image was credited to Getty Images.

The image was used in an article published in 2019.

(Source: VOX/Screenshot)

Using this as a clue, we looked for the image on Getty Images and found it in the photo archives from 2019. This image was from the scene of a suicide bombing in Kabul, in which at least 10 people were killed.

While it is true that the recent explosion took place in Kabul, the image is not an accurate representation of it.

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