Old Video From Pakistan Shared as Taliban Dancing After Taking Over Afghanistan

The video appeared on the internet at least as early as March, months before the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.

The video appeared on the internet at least as early as March 2021, months before the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video showing people holding guns and dancing has been shared by several social media users with a claim that it shows the Taliban dancing after taking over Afghanistan.

This claim comes days after the Taliban tookover a majority provinces in Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul.

However, we found that the video, which dates back to at least March 2021, was from Bannu in Pakistan and not Afghanistan.

CLAIM

Users that shared the video said that video showed Taliban dancing after taking over Afghanistan.

One version of the video had Canadian rapper Drake’s ‘In My Feelings’ song playing in the background while another one had Bollywood song "Afghan Jalebi".

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Photo: Facebook/Screenshot)

Archives of more such posts on Facebook can be found here, here and here.

Supreme Court advocate Prashant Patel Umrao, who has often been called out for peddling misinformation before also shared the video on his Twitter profile so did new agency ANI's editor Smita Prakash. However, both the tweets have now been removed.

The video was also aired by TV9 Bharatvarsh which was later removed from the channel’s social media accounts.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We conducted a reverse image search on some of the keyframes extracted from the viral video using the InVID-WeVerify Google Chrome extension and found the same video posted online months before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

A video was uploaded on 25 March 2021 on YouTube by a user called Usman Khan and was titled, "DJ Bannu Dance". The description of the video said, "#DJBannu #Dance #Funny #Music #Culture #Pakistan".

Bannu is a district in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The music in the video was an instrumental track and not Drake's song or a Bollywood song.

Several other versions of the video were seen posted in March and April.

The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan began following the withdrawal of a majority of US troops on 1 May. The group advanced rapidly in the country, capturing city after city, ultimately capturing Kabul on 15 August.

Iftikhar Firdous, who is a Pakistan-based journalist, shared the TV9 Bharatvarsh broadcast and said that the viral video shows marriage in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

“Dancers in the marriage are masquerading,” he wrote in his tweet.

While going through the search results, we also found the video posted by a user called Qasim Khan who called out the TV9 Bharatvarsh report and said that it showed a wedding in Bannu.

Khan's video was shared by another user from Pakistan called Wahab Pukhtoon. Photos found on Pukhtoon's photo showed resemblance with the man seen dancing in a blue kurta in the viral video.

Comparison of a person from the viral video with a photo from their Facebok profile.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Fact-checking organisation Alt News reached out to Pukhtoon, who confirmed that he was the man wearing the blue kurta in the viral video. "The video was shot on my phone at my cousin’s wedding on 18 March, 2021 in the Bannu district,” he told Alt News.

Evidently, an old and unrelated video from Pakistan was shared by social media users with a false claim that it showed the Taliban dancing in celebrations after taking over Afghanistan.

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