Video from Germany misrepresented as US Muslims after National Guard shooting
- Published on December 3, 2025 at 21:18
- 4 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
After an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard members near the White House, killing one of them, right-wing social media users claimed a video showed Muslim residents of Dearborn, Michigan leading chants for a "revolution." But this is false; the clip was filmed at a pro-Palestinian protest in Berlin, Germany, days before the attack in Washington.
"After DC National Guard shooting by Afghan national, Muslim in Dearborn calls for 'Revolution' against America," says a November 27, 2025 post on X. "@USCIS @ICEgov – put Dearborn HIGH on the deportation list NOW. Time to end sanctuary scams."
The video shows a man in a black jacket and Nike hat shouting a call-and-response into a microphone as he walked backwards at night, with a van behind him.
Similar posts placing the clip in Dearborn, a city with a large Muslim and immigrant population, circulated in English and Spanish across X and other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
The posts spread after authorities charged 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal with murder for allegedly shooting two National Guard members stationed near the White House on November 26. Lakanwal entered the United States as part of a resettlement program following the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
US President Donald Trump deployed National Guard troops to Washington and various other Democrat-run cities in an unprecedented move aimed at supporting his mass-deportation policies. Following the shooting, he froze all asylum decisions and wrote that he planned to "permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover."
The clip claimed to show Muslims rallying in Dearborn, however, has been misrepresented.
Out-of-context footage
Searching for "El Hajj Mahmoud," the text overlaid across the video, traced it to the TikTok account "@omarelhajj90," which posted it November 22 -- days before the National Guard shooting (archived here).
The original post did not specify where the footage was captured, but a high-visibility vest on a man in the background says, "Ordner," which is German for a steward or marshal.
The @omarelhajj90 account -- which appears to focus on posting footage from pro-Palestinian demonstrations -- shared numerous clips showing the same individual falsely claimed to be a Muslim in Dearborn, and some labeled as taking place in Berlin (archived here and here).
On Instagram, the user posted several additional videos from the November 22 march, some of which show the same person in the same black jacket and Nike hat (archived here and here).
Keyword searches for a November 22 protest in Berlin uncovered an Instagram video from Berlin-based journalist Ryad Aref that described the demonstration as a rally in solidarity with Gaza that had "gathered at Platz der Luftbrücke and marched through the streets" (archived here).
The man highlighted in the false posts also appears in Aref's clip, as does the van at the front of the crowd.
Filmed in Berlin
To corroborate the location, AFP matched storefronts, buildings and landmarks in Mahmoud's and Aref's Instagram videos to Google Street View images from roads in Berlin, including Mehringdamm, Blücherstraße and Prinzenstraße (archived here, here and here).
AFP then mapped out a possible route for the march, reviewed Google Street View imagery for the surrounding area and eventually located a stretch of Prinzenstraße, near the corner with Ritterstraße, that matched the video falsely claimed to show Dearborn (archived here).
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about US politics here.
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