Claim: In this post on X, with over 49,000 views at the time of writing, the claim is shared that the photographs were taken in Afghanistan in 2021. The same claim has been made in this TikTok video that has been viewed over 215,000 times.

Rating

DW Fact check: False The photos were published by the San Francisco Chronicle on June 9, 2025. The newspaper, based in California, states that they obtained the photographs. Reverse image searches (like here and here) also do not reveal any older versions of the photographs, which means they have most likely not been published on the internet before. They do lead to similar images of National Guard personnel lying on the ground, like these taken in parking garages in the US in 2021, as news reports from that time show. Those photographs do not match the images in the claim, however, as the latter lack white walls with red stripes. Additionally, in the older news reports we see people wearing face masks, as 2021 was still the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. No masks are worn in the pictures of the current claims. In the post's comment section, some users turned to Grok, X's AI chatbot, to try to verify the time and place the photographs were taken. Grok first indicated that they were taken in Afghanistan in 2021. Upon further questioning, Grok then suggests they may have been taken at the US Capitol in 2021, before replying it is "9 out of 10 certain the photos are from 2025," pointing to the unreliability of the answers of the AI chatbot. We reached out to the San Francisco Chronicle to obtain more detailed information. The well-known newspaper confirmed the authenticity of the photos and shared an article in which it responds to the circulating claims showing the photographs being taken out of context. It includes a comment from the US Defense Department made to the fact checking organization Snopes, also confirming that the photographs "appear to be authentic."

Reviewed by Deutsche Welle ↗ · June 12, 2025