Old Video of Girl Firing a Machine Gun Is Unrelated to Taliban
The Claim
A young girl fires a machine gun as she fights against the Taliban in the Panjshir Valley.
News posted on
Emerging story
A video is circulating on social media, which depicts a young girl in the back of a pickup truck firing a live automatic machine gun. The accompanying claim is that the girl will fight against the Taliban in the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan. Some users claim she is part of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF).
Misbar’s Analysis
MENA: A screenshot of the video on Google reverse image search revealed that the video is old and unrelated to the Taliban. The video was uploaded on YouTube titled “Small Baloch girl who was firing with a machine gun” by an account named Daughter of Baloch on the 25th of January 2020, as can be seen below.
This time was long before the Taliban had seized power in Afghanistan. The Baloch people reside in Balochistān in Pakistan and neighboring areas of Iran and, to a lesser degree Afghanistan.
Although the context of the video was unclear, it is apparent that it had nothing to do with a young girl fighting the Taliban. Currently, the Taliban and National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) battle for power in the Panjshir region. Given the findings, the Misbar team confirms the claim as misleading.
