Old video resurfaces in misleading context following Istanbul blast in November 2022
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 15, 2022 at 09:13
- 2 min read
- By Wasi MIRZA, AFP Pakistan
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"We strongly condemn the suicide bombing in Turkey," reads an Urdu-language Twitter post shared on November 13, 2022.
"Those who take innocent lives are enemies of Islam and humanity. Heartfelt regret over the precious and innocent lives lost."
The 23-second clip -- viewed more than 80,000 times with the misleading claim -- shows a CCTV recording of people walking in a street shortly before an explosion.
The video resurfaced online hours after a bomb exploded in Istiklal Avenue, a popular thoroughfare in Istanbul home to smart boutiques and European consulates.
Turkey has accused a Syrian woman of planting the bomb that killed six people and wounded 80 others, blaming the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party of carrying out the attack, AFP reported.
The same footage was viewed more than 10,000 times on Facebook and Twitter in similar posts in Arabic, Persian and Urdu.
Pakistan's ARY News also used the clip in a report about the bombing that has been viewed more than 300,000 times on Facebook.
However, the video is old.
2016 suicide bombing
A reverse search of the video's keyframes on Russian search engine Yandex found a longer version of the video published here on Twitter by Turkey's Evrensel Daily on March 19, 2016.
"#Taksim clearer images emerged of the suicide bomb attack on Istiklal Avenue," the Turkish-language tweet reads.
"Taksim" refers to a popular square in Istanbul where Istiklal and other avenues converge.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (left) with the one from Evrensel (right):
On March 19, 2016, four foreigners were killed in a suicide attack in Istiklal by a bomber who authorities described as a Turkish jihadist with ties to the Islamic State group, AFP reported.
Scenes in the video correspond to Google Street View imagery below of Istiklal Avenue in Istanbul:
Versions of the video were also published in March 2016 by the Russian state video agency Ruptly here and British newspaper The Daily Express here.
AFP previously debunked Arabic-language posts that have misleadingly shared the video here.
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