Fact-Check: Video from 2012 falsely linked to recent Balochistan train hijack

On Tuesday, March 11, some separatist militants hijacked a Passenger train, in a tunnel in Balochistan. The Jaffar Express, carrying around 400 passengers in nine bogies, was travelling from Quetta to Peshawar when militants intercepted it in a tunnel near the mountainous terrain of Gudalar and Piru Kunri. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) later claimed responsibility for the attack. More than 150 passengers have been rescued in the operation conducted by Pakistan security forces while killing 30 rebels who hijacked the train.
In the aftermath of the Balochistan Train Hijack, a video showing visuals of a military operation is making rounds on X. Pak-based users shared this video and claimed that it projected how the Pak-forces eliminated the militants behind the recent Balochistan train hijack.

A user named Adeel Asif pk posted this video on X and wrote: “You people will find that peace by seeing the BLA thugs receive hell” (Translated from Urdu)

Furthermore, several users shared this video and made similar claims on X. The preview link can be seen here and here.

Fact-Check

The DFRAC team investigated the viral video and found that it was available online since 2012 on the internet..

Our team converted this video into keyframes and reverse-searched them using Google Lens. During this process, we found a tweet from 2017. It carried the same video with the caption: “Footage of “Russian helicopter bombing ISIS” shown to Oliver Stone by Putin appears to be taken from 2013 US Afghan video”.

Not only this, we also came across some reports from Daily Mail UK and VOA related to the 2017 tweet. The reports, published in June 2017, stated that Putin was filmed showing Oliver Stone a combat footage on a cellphone. He told Stone video showed Russian operations in Syria, but researchers say the footage appears to be from the US Department of Defense & believe the video is from either 2009 or 2013, showing anti-Taliban operations in Afghanistan.

Moreover, the extended version of this video was found on Youtube, uploaded in 2013 with the title: “2 US Apache Helicopters Engage over 20 Taliban fighters NEW”.

Lastly, we found this video on the website “military.com” with the description citing that footage taken during operations in 2009 in Afghanistan showing Apache helicopters eliminate a platoon of Taliban setting up to ambush a U.S. special forces patrol.

Conclusion

It is evident from DFRAC’s fact-check that the viral video is unrelated to the recent Balochistan train mishap. The video is available online since 2012 on the internet and has been taken from a 2009 US military operation conducted in Afghanistan.

Analysis: Misleading