Old video from Syria circulates alongside false claims it shows Taliban execution
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 30, 2021 at 11:09
- 3 min read
- By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea
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The video and claim were shared here on Facebook on August 19, 2021.
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The Korean-language caption reads: "The atrocities of the Taliban! Because she didn't wear a burqa, a woman was shot in her head with a pistol on the street, a prompt execution by the Taliban devils!"
The graphic video shows a woman dressed in a headscarf, black clothing and a red jacket being shot in the head with a pistol by one of several armed men standing around her.
The same video has been shared alongside similar claims on Facebook here, here and here; and on the South Korean internet forum DC Inside here.
The posts surfaced after Taliban fighters entered the Afghan capital of Kabul on August 15, 2021.
The claim, however, is false.
Through a Google reverse search of the keyframes in the video, AFP found the same video was reported on by US media outlet Vice News on January 17, 2015.
The report says the video was shot in a northwestern Syrian town, and shows a woman being executed by a militant group tied to Al-Qaeda after being accused of adultery.
The report linked to a post from January 13, 2015 by a local Syrian activist group, “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently", that identified the video as being filmed in Maarat al-Numan, a city in Syria's Idlib province.
Below is a screenshot comparison between the initial keyframes of the video shared on Facebook (L) and the video found on the activist website (R).
The Arabic script on a wall seen at the 52-second mark of the video reads: "Al-Qaeda organization in the Levant, Al-Nusra front," referring to the extremist organisation affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
An AFP journalist said that people in the video spoke Arabic with a Syrian dialect.
Reuters also reported on the woman's killing in a report from January 14, 2015, citing civic organization the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said it had obtained the video at the time.
According to media reports by BBC here and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting here, Maarat al-Numan and its vicinity were contested between the Syrian government and rebel forces throughout 2014 and 2015.
Al-Nusra first emerged in January 2012, which suggests that the video could not be taken during the Taliban's first ruling period in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
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