False posts about 'attack' on Pakistan army centre misuse unrelated fire clip

Published on April 3, 2025 at 11:23
3 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

Following a surge in separatist attacks in southwestern Pakistan in March, rumours surfaced online that the headquarters for Pakistan's army was also bombed. But there have been no official reports about such an incident and the false posts included footage from news reports about a fuel tanker explosion in Syria.

"In Pakistan, a powerful bomb was detonated at Pakistani Army's headquarters. The explosion killed 20 Pakistani soldiers," reads a March 24, 2025 Facebook post from a user based in Pakistan's archrival neighbour India.

It includes a clip of people running away from a burning structure.

"The attack was carried out by Balochistan Army," adds the post's Hindi-language caption in an apparent reference to the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) which has claimed responsibility for a deadly train siege and a bombing on a convoy of buses in March (archived here and here).

BLA is one of separatist groups that accuse outsiders of plundering natural resources in volatile Balochistan province near the borders with Afghanistan and Iran (archived link).

Screenshot of the false post, taken on March 26, 2025

Similar posts on Facebook and X also surfaced claiming the Pakistan army's headquarters in Rawalpindi in Punjab province was bombed but no official reports indicate such an attack happened as of April 3.

A reverse image search of the circulating video's keyframes found it in a report from Sky News Arabia on March 18, 2025 (archived link).

The report says it shows a fuel depot explosion in Douma near the Syrian capital Damascus.

Further keyword searches found the video also included in other reports about the fire (archived here, here and here).

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the Sky News video

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the incident saying two civilians sustained injuries in the oil tanker explosion (archived link).

An AFP journalist reviewed the footage and found signboards visible in the clip display text in Arabic. Signs in Pakistan, however, are mostly written in the official language Urdu (archived link).

Screenshot of the video with an Arabic signpost highlighted by AFP

AFP has fact-checked other misinformation related to separatist attacks in Pakistan.

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