By Archis Chowdhury
Right-wing influencer Tarek Fatah recently revived a seven-year-old video of an execution of a Pakistani military intelligence officer by Pakistani Taliban militants as recent.
The video was shared by Fatah in the backdrop of renewed tension between Pakistani army and the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
The disturbing footage, which we have not include in this story, shows an individual with a noose around his neck while draped in the Pakistani flag, and surrounded by masked men. One of the men gives a speech in Pashto, and then proceeds to hang the individual and shoot him along with the others.
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Fatah shared the video with the following caption, "CAUTION: Disturbing Video. Taliban jihadis hang and then shoot dead a captured Pakistani soldier. As Makcolm (sic) X once said, the chickens have come home to roost."
We used keywords from Fatah's tweet text and searched on Facebook to find that multiple users had shared the video recently with the exact same caption.
Fact-Check
BOOM looked the the responses to Fatah's tweet, and came across a reply which stated that the video was an old video of TTP militants executing an ISI officer, and does not show a recent instance.
We did a keyword search with "taliban hang pakistani soldier video", and came across a report by Reuters titled "Pakistani Taliban says hanged military officer as revenge for executions".
In the article, dated October 5, 2015, Reuters claims to have received two videos from a Taliban commander known to the wire agency, the first of which shows a man identifying himself as "Bashir Ahmad Khan, originally from the 19th army air defence unit and later recruited by Pakistan's military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence".
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The article then describes the second video, which strongly resembled the scenario seen in the video shared by Fatah. Here is an excerpt from the article:
"In the second video, Khan is shown wrapped in a Pakistani flag, his eyes bound with black cloth and a noose around his neck. One of the masked men says: "The hanging of Bashir Ahmad is our response to the Pakistani government who are busy hanging our group members. This is just the beginning and all those who are in our custody or those who have any links with the Pakistan government will face the same treatment." After the masked man finishes speaking, he pushes Khan off a rock. As Khan dangles from the rope around his neck, other militants shoot at his body and shout: "God is great.""
According to Reuters, although the video was provided by a Taliban commander, he did not comment on the time and location of when it was shot. The agency also added that they could not independently authenticate the two videos, and could not get an immediate comment from the Pakistan military spokesperson.
We did a keyword search with "bashir ahmad khan", and came across a tweet by user @Terror_Monitor from October 11, 2015, which contained screenshots from the exact two videos described by Reuters. The third screenshot was also a match with the video shared by Fatah. The caption of the tweet also stated that it showed the footage of Khan's executiuon by the Taliban.
BOOM could not independently confirm whether the video did in fact show Khan's execution.
However, it has been on the internet since October 2015, and is not linked the the recent instances of violence between the TTP and the Pakistani military
