Baseless posts about India embassy attack misuse old photos

Published on July 18, 2025 at 07:28
3 min read
By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India

Unfounded rumours have circulated among Indian social media users that the country's embassy in Afghanistan was attacked in early July. The visuals in the false posts are old, and include a picture of a bombing that damaged the German embassy building in Afghanistan's capital Kabul in 2017.

"Shocking news from Kabul: Attack on the Indian Embassy; several officials martyred while serving the nation," reads a Hindi-language X post shared July 7, 2025.

"This shameful act violates international diplomatic principles," adds the caption to two pictures that each depict a damaged building.

Screenshot of the false X post taken July 7, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

Similar claims also surfaced on Facebook on the anniversary of the 2008 attack on India's embassy in Afghanistan that killed 41 people and injured about 150 others (archived here and here).

Comments to the false posts indicate social media users believed the visuals were recent.

"This is bad news," one wrote. Another said, "Will Modi do something or not?" referring to India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

But there have been no official reports of an assault targeting the Indian diplomatic headquarters in Kabul.

A combination of reverse image and keyword searches on Google found the first photo on the archives of The Associated Press (AP) news agency (archived link)

"Afghan security forces watch a house burn at the site of a clash between insurgents and security forces at the Indian Consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, Friday, May 23, 2014," reads part of its caption.

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the photo from AP

The picture was also published in a report from Indian media NDTV about the incident (archived link).

The second same image was published in a Reuters report with a caption that says, "Afghan officials inspect outside the German embassy after a blast in Kabul, Afghanistan May 31, 2017" (archived link).

The report said a bomb hidden in a sewage tanker exploded in the centre of Kabul, killing at least 80 people and damaging embassy buildings.

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the photo from Reuters

Al Jazeera featured the image in a report about the blast (archived link).

Other false posts include a third picture also from AP depicting former Indian diplomats inspecting the embassy in Kabul following a car bomb attack in October 2009 (archived here and here)

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the photo from AP

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