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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

War & conflict fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about war & conflict. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

5,847 published reviews in this topic

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaWar & conflict

FACT CHECK: තලෛබාන් තරුණයින් තාප්ප සිතුවම් කරමින් තමන් ලද ජයග්‍රහණය සැමරුවාද?

Publisher’s rating: False

The claim concerns a photograph circulated as showing Taliban youths painting walls to celebrate after Taliban fighters took Kabul. The review says it investigated the shared image and its description, rather than treating the image’s caption as proof of when or why the scene occurred. It reports that the publisher first submitted the photograph to a reverse-image search and found that it had been taken in Afghanistan two years earlier, in August 2019. The investigation attributes the photograph to AP photographer Nishanuddin Khan. It describes the original scene as independent Afghan artists painting tulips on concrete blast walls in Kabul—walls built to reduce damage from explosions. That provenance places the image before the events invoked by the viral claim and identifies the people and activity in the photograph differently from the caption’s account of Taliban celebrants. The review also explains the artwork’s significance: tulips are Afghanistan’s national flower, and a report cited by the investigation said the flowers represented civilians killed during the country’s long-running war. Its conclusion is therefore that the photograph was old and showed artists commemorating civilian deaths, not Taliban youths celebrating a victory by painting walls after taking Kabul.

FACTLYWar & conflict

Image showing IAF airlifting 800 people from Kabul amid recent tensions in Afghanistan

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a photograph of people crowded inside a cargo aircraft, presented as showing the Indian Air Force (IAF) carrying 800 people from Kabul during the August 2021 Afghanistan crisis. FACTLY’s investigation identified the photograph as unrelated to that evacuation: it depicts a 2013 US Air Force operation in the Philippines, not an IAF flight from Kabul. The review says the image was from Operation Damayan, which evacuated residents of Tacloban after Super Typhoon Haiyan. The review describes a reverse-image search that led to the same photograph on the US Air Force’s official website. That site’s description attributed the image to Operation Damayan and said the C-17 had rescued 670 people. This provenance directly contradicts the post’s presentation of the picture as a recent Kabul evacuation image. The review distinguishes the old photograph from actual Kabul airlifts. It reports that a US Air Force C-17 carried hundreds of evacuees from Kabul to Qatar on 16 August 2021: an initial cockpit audio clip indicated 800 people, but the number was later confirmed as 640. Separately, it says an Indian Air Force C-17 returned to Delhi from Kabul with 45 Indian evacuees. The post therefore conflated an old image with recent evacuation news and misattributed the aircraft and operation.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturWar & conflict

Die Fotos zeigen die Evakuierung aus Afghanistan im Jahr 2021.

Publisher’s rating: Das Foto des deutschen Flugzeugs wurde aus dem Kontext gerissen. Es zeigt nicht den aktuellen Evakuierungseinsatz, sondern wurde schon 2017 verbreitet. Das Foto des US-Fluges hingegen ist aktuell.

The claim concerns two photos shared as evidence that the US evacuated many people from Afghanistan while Germany evacuated only seven. The review distinguishes the photos: the German aircraft image was not from the 2021 evacuation, while the US aircraft image did show the current operation. It reports that the Bundeswehr did evacuate seven people from Afghanistan on a flight during the night of 17 August 2021, but says the circulated German-aircraft photo did not show that flight. (S1: “Tatsächlich hat die Bundeswehr in der Nacht auf den 17. August 2021 sieben Menschen aus Afghanistan ausgeflogen.”; “Das Foto im Post zeigt allerdings nicht diesen Evakuierungsflug, wie vom Verfasser behauptet wird.”) To investigate the German image, the review reports using a reverse image search. That search found the photo had already appeared in 2017 in an article about former Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen’s first flight on an Airbus A400M. The journalist Thomas Wiegold also confirmed that he had taken the image inside the aircraft. The review therefore separates a true detail about the evacuation—seven people were flown out on the relevant night—from the misleading use of an older photo to illustrate it. (S1: “Eine Bilderrückwärtssuche ergibt, dass das Foto nicht aktuell ist.”; “Es wurde bereits 2017 in einem Artikel über den ersten Flug der damaligen Verteidigungsministerin Ursula von der Leyen mit einem Airbus A400M verbreitet.”; “Das bestätigt auch der Journalist Thomas Wiegold auf Twitter, der das Bild in der Maschine nach eigenem Bekunden gemacht hat.”) The US-aircraft image, by contrast, did depict the current Kabul evacuation. The review says initial media reports estimated that about 640 Afghans were aboard, and later information put the number at 823. Thus, the two images did not have the same provenance: one was an older image reused in the comparison, while the other showed the current operation. (S1: “Das zweite Foto im Post zeigt hingegen tatsächlich den aktuellen Evakuierungseinsatz in Kabul.”; “Später stellte sich heraus, dass sogar 823 Menschen im Frachtraum des Flugzeug ausgeflogen wurden.”)

FACTLYWar & conflict

Video of Srinagar police arresting a terrorist

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns footage circulated as showing Srinagar police arresting a terrorist. FACTLY says it investigated that specific video and found it showed a different incident: Brazil police arresting a 17-year-old motorcyclist in Perola, Brazil, for traffic violations. The review dates the incident to 1 August 2021 and says it had no connection to Srinagar police. The review describes its visual check: it performed a reverse image search using screenshots from the circulated video and found similar footage published by the Brazilian news program Paraná no Ar. That program identified the scene as Brazil police catching a young biker in Perola. FACTLY also cites a ricmais article, which reported that the teenager was arrested after allegedly disobeying and fleeing Perola Military police during patrol. According to the review, police chased and caught him at Pearl Avenue Byington; when he tried to flee on foot, an officer knocked him down with a flying kick. The review further reports that the teenager faced charges including driving without a license, disobeying stop orders and dangerous driving. Taken together, the identified Brazilian news footage and the reported Perola incident establish that the video was miscaptioned as an arrest in Srinagar, rather than depicting the claimed arrest of a terrorist there.

FactcrescendoWar & conflict

আজানরত অবস্থায় প্যালেস্তাইনের একটি মসজিদ বোমা মেরে ধ্বংস করলো ইজরায়েল

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a 17-second video said to show Israel bombing a mosque in Palestine while the call to prayer is sounding. The review identifies the footage as showing a different event: the destruction of the Veysel Karani tomb in Raqqa, Syria, in 2014, attributed in the review to ISIS. It therefore says the video has been recirculated with a false Palestinian setting and attribution. To trace the footage, the investigators divided it into key frames using InVID WeVerify and performed a reverse-image search on Google. They report finding the video in a CNN Türk article dated June 24, 2014, which identifies the structure as the Veysel Karani tomb in Raqqa, not a mosque. The review also cites a June 9, 2014, report by Turkish outlet ABNA about the same video, and a Mint video uploaded in 2015 that it says describes the destruction of the tomb by ISIS. The review’s conclusion rests on the footage’s earlier identification and reported Syrian provenance: the video does not document the claimed bombing of a Palestinian mosque by Israel. The supplied excerpt describes the investigation and its cited corroboration, but does not include the underlying CNN Türk, ABNA, or Mint materials themselves.