Viral videos showing damage inflicted by Afghanistan on Pakistan are old, unrelated

The iVerify Pakistan team investigated this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a reverse image search to find the original source.

Posts from multiple users on social media platform X shared videos on October 12, 2025, claiming to show the damage inflicted by the Afghan Taliban on Pakistan and its armed forces. However, the clips were old and unrelated to the recent cross-border attacks between the neighbours.

Late Saturday night, Afghan troops opened fire on Pakistani border posts, with Kabul’s defence ministry saying it was in retaliation for Islamabad’s airstrikes in Afghanistan earlier this week, according to Reuters. On the other hand, Pakistan said it had responded with gun and artillery fire.

Both nations claimed to have destroyed the border posts of the other side. While the Afghan defence ministry said its operation had finished last night, Pakistani security officials stated that the exchange of fire was mostly over Sunday morning.

Since then, Pakistan’s two main border crossings with the neighbouring country, Torkham and Chaman, have been closed.

HOW IT STARTED

On Oct 12, an X account, which seems to be run by an Indian user from previous posts, shared a video at 12:04am showing downed fighter jets that were blazing. The caption read: “BIG BREAKING:- ONE Pakistani Jet Shot Down At Durand Line.”

The posts amassed 441,500 views and 14,000 likes. It was reshared 2,300 times.

The video and the claim were shared by another Indian user on X with the caption: Sleep tight, PAF is awake. PAF jet crashed inside Pakistan territory in Bajaur (shot down by TTP commandos).”

The post gathered 526,300 views and 3,400 likes.

Subsequently, the clip, along with the same claim, was quickly shared by other X users as can be seen here, here, and here, racking up 520,548 views.

Separately, another video, claimed to be showing the exchange of fire between Afghan and Pakistani forces in the dead of the night, was shared at 12:17am on Oct 12 by an Indian user on X.

The caption of the post said: “Afghan forces have launched airstrike on Pakistan’s city of Lahore using Super Tucano Jets -reports. This is the FIRST time Taliban has used US-made aircraft left behind in combat. Afghans have activated 2/3rd of the ENTIRE BORDER with Pakistan— 27 locations BURNING.”

He added that the video was from the Durand Line, the Afghan-Pakistan border. The post gained 405,100 views, 7,700 likes and was reshared about 1,600 times.

The clip was soon shared by other X users as well, as can be seen here, here, here and here, accumulating 63,743 views.

The same clip was also shared by Pakistani journalist Rizwan Ghilzai on X with the caption: “Unprovoked firing from the Afghan side at the Pak-Afghan border/Update: Pakistan is currently targeting Khawarij and Daesh terrorist camps and hideouts near the Pak-Afghan border in Afghanistan with extreme precision, security sources.

“Afghan forces have retreated from several areas; effective and intense retaliatory action by Pakistan continues, security sources,” he added in the post that gathered 23,900 views.

The clip was shared by Tolo News, an Afghan news channel and website, on Instagram. “Sources: Five Pakistani soldiers were killed on the other side of the presumptive line. Five Pakistani soldiers have been killed and two others have been injured as a result of clashes between the Islamic Emirate forces of Afghanistan and Pakistan, sources confirmed so far,” it wrote in the caption.

The video garnered 719,000 views and over 30,000 likes.

The clip and the claim were also quickly shared on social media platforms Facebook and TikTok, as seen here, here, here and here.

Moreover, a screenshot of the said video was also used by news outlets Urdu Point and Pakistan Today in their reporting of last night’s events.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality and keen public interest in the Pakistan-Afghanistan cross-border situation.

A reverse image search of the video showing downed and blazing jets yielded a news report by Indian news outlet The Economic Times, dated July 28, 2022. Its headline read: “MiG-21 fighter aircraft of IAF crashes near Barmer in Rajasthan; 2 pilots were onboard”.

According to the report, the wreckage in the video showed a MiG-21 fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force that crashed near Barmer district in Rajasthan, in which at least two pilots were killed.

The said video was also carried by other Indian media channels such as ABP News, DNA India, WION and Tribune India.

Meanwhile, a reverse image search of the second video — which purportedly shows heavy exchange of fire — yielded results showing that the clip was as old as September 2021. The clip was shared a number of times in the last four years, with some users alleging it showed border skirmishes between Islamabad and Kabul in December last year.

The oldest trace of the video that iVerify Pakistan found was from August 2021, when the video was shared on YouTube with the caption: “War Between Taliban and Panjshir Northern Alliance.”

A keyword search then led the team to a news report published by Indonesian news website VIVA on Sep 6, 2021. According to it, the video shows a firefight between the Taliban and Afghan National Resistance Forces (NRF) in the Panjshir Valley in Sep 2021.

While the exact origin of the second video could not be conclusively determined, it has been repeatedly shared in connection with various older firing incidents, which makes it clear that it is not from the Oct 12 cross-border attacks between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim that viral videos show scenes of Pakistan-Afghanistan cross-border attacks on Oct 12 is false.

The videos are old and not from the Oct 12 incident.