Clip shows Pakistan missile test in 2022, not 'after recent US sanctions'

Published on February 3, 2025 at 09:56
2 min read
By Rimal FARRUKH, AFP Pakistan

After Pakistan decried "biased" US sanctions on state-owned and private companies over its long-range ballistic missile programme in December 2024, a video was shared in social media posts that falsely claimed the South Asian nation had defied the measures by testing a new missile. The clip in fact shows a missile test conducted in April 2022.

"Good news… After the American ban on ballistic missiles, Pakistan successfully tested the ballistic missile 'Zarar III' which has a range of 7,000 kilometres," read the Urdu-language caption to a Facebook video posted on December 21, 2024.

The video, viewed more than 1,600 times, was shared days after the United States announced sanctions on four Pakistan companies, which it described as "proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery" (archived link).

Pakistan -- one of the few countries to openly possess nuclear weapons -- said the measures were "biased" and had "dangerous implications" for regional stability.

The sanctions bar American citizens from working with Pakistan's state-owned National Development Complex (NDC) and three associated companies, which all had their US assets frozen.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on February 1, 2025

The clip was also shared alongside similar claims on Facebook and X.

But there have been no official reports as of February 3, 2025 that Pakistan tested a missile following the US sanctions in December.

Local fact-check organisation Soch Fact Check has also debunked the claim (archived link).

Old missile test

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to a report by Pakistan's Dawn newspaper about a successful ballistic missile test carried out on April 9, 2022 (archived link).

The report embeds footage of the launch that was posted on the X account of the spokesperson for Pakistan military's communication service (ISPR) on the same day (archived link).

The video is captioned: "Pakistan today conducted successful flight test of Shaheen-III surface to surface ballistic missile. The test flight was aimed at revalidating various design and technical parameters of the weapon system."

Screenshot comparison of the clip in the false post (left) and the video posted by the ISPR spokesperson in April 2022 (right)

The footage was also embedded in a press release issued by the ISPR about the "Shaheen-III" flight test (archived here and here).

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