Clip shows IS group training in Afghanistan, not Bangladesh madrassa
- Published on July 3, 2026 at 03:46
- 2 min read
- By Rasheek MUJIB, AFP Bangladesh
Video of a child being taught to shoot a gun was not filmed in Bangladesh, contrary to social media posts claiming it showed weapons training at a madrassa in the country. The video was taken from an Al Jazeera documentary published online in November 2015 about the emergence of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan.
"Bangladesh's madrassas are providing weapons training. This is the current situation in Bangladesh," says the Bengali-language caption of a Facebook video shared on June 15, 2026.
The video, which has since racked up more than 170,000 views and 2,700 shares, appears to show a young boy being taught to shoot a gun by a man wearing a black balaclava.
"We want education in schools, not violence," says superimposed Bengali text on the video.
The video also circulated in similar Facebook and X posts by accounts that previously shared content supportive of Bangladesh's fugitive former leader Sheikh Hasina.
Hasina fled to neighbouring India in August 2024 after a student-led uprising ended her 15-year, iron-fisted rule (archived link). The activities of her former ruling Awami League, once one of the country's most popular, have also been outlawed.
Critics had long argued that madrassas, Islamic religious schools, were breeding radical Muslims -- and Hasina's government was praised years before her ouster for its tough stance on extremism (archived here and here).
Fears that youths in the country are being radicalised in the religious schools have persisted, with local media reporting that police had recovered "crude bomb-like objects and 400 litres of chemical substances" from a madrassa on the outskirts of Dhaka following an explosion there in December 2025 (archived link).
But the circulating video does not depict the situation inside Bangladesh, as posts claim.
Documentary clip
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to similar footage aired in an Al Jazeera documentary that was uploaded to YouTube on November 2, 2015 (archived link).
"ISIL and the Taliban -- Featured Documentary," reads the video's title, using another name for the Islamic State (IS) group.
The falsely shared video appears to have been taken from the 46:29 mark of the documentary, and then mirrored and magnified.
Narration in the Al Jazeera documentary indicates the footage was filmed in Afghanistan.
Prior to the falsely shared video appearing, clips of another "military training school" believed to be in Mosul, Iraq are shown.
"It's like a production line for tomorrow's militants. And this phenomenon has made its way from Iraqi cities to Afghan villages," the narrator says.
"This training school may be small, but the signs are clear. ISIL is aiming to fight the long way here, and Afghanistan's agony after nearly 40 years of non-stop violent conflict looks set to continue."
The same children and masked man are shown in a photo made available by the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) on August 1, 2015, with its caption saying it was taken in an undisclosed location of Afghanistan's Kunar province (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation around Bangladesh politics.
Copyright © AFP 2017-2026. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
