An image has been shared repeatedly in Facebook and Twitter posts alongside a claim it shows US military vehicles seized by the Taliban in Afghanistan's Panjshir province. The posts circulated online after the Taliban declared victory over resistance fighters in Panjshir — the last holdout resisting their rule. The claim is false: the image shows vehicles in Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield in 2013, eight years before US forces left the country's biggest airbase.
The photo was posted here on Facebook on September 6, 2021.
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"All this loot from Panjshir is in the hands of the Emirate [Taliban]," reads the post's Urdu-language caption.
Screenshot of the post claiming to show vehicles captured by the Taliban in Panjshir. Taken on September 9, 2021. ( AFP / ) Panjshir province was the last site resisting Taliban control after the group seized power of Afghanistan in August.
On September 6, the Taliban claimed to have "won that battle" while resistance fighters claimed they were "still present in 'strategic positions'," AFP reported here.
The photo has been shared alongside a similar claim of "loot" being seized in Panjshir -- on Facebook here and here; and on Twitter here, here, here and here.
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The claim, however, is false; the photo shows vehicles at Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield in 2013.
A reverse image search found the same photo was posted here on the website for the US Department of Defense in 2013.
The photo caption reads: "Rows of heavy vehicles fill a retrograde yard before shipment on Camp Warrior, Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Oct. 2, 2013".
Bagram Airfield -- also known as Bagram Air Base -- served as the linchpin for US operations in Afghanistan until July 2021 when all troops were withdrawn, according to an AFP report.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading post (L) and the original image (R):
Screenshot comparing the image in the false posts (L) and the one from the US government website (R). Taken on September 8, 2021. ( AFP / ) Contacted by AFP, a spokesperson from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense (OSD) said the photo shows vehicles in Bagram Airfield in 2013.
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"This photo was In fact taken in 2013 at Bagram: Rows of heavy vehicles fill a retrograde yard before shipment on Camp Warrior, Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Oct. 2, 2013," Lieutenant Colonel Ken Hoffman, duty officer for OSD Public Affairs, told AFP.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by BOOM staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)