A year-long video of a fire near the Pakistan National Mosque was mistaken for demonstrating the consequences of a drone attack in recent clashes with India. A reporter from AFP visited the Fisal Mosque in Islamabad and found no signs of damage to the battle.
The Urdu language title reads in a video released on May 8, 2025: “Drone attacked Islamabad in Islamabad.”
The video shows a fire on the roadside leading to the capital's mosque, when India and Pakistan have been in the worst violence between the two countries in decades (archived here and here).
Drones, missiles, fighters and artillery were competing for border attacks in nuclear-weapon neighbors, with at least 70 lives on both sides (archives) before agreeing to a ceasefire.
The fight broke out two weeks after the April 22 attack on tourists' Kashmir attack on India-managed by India, killing 26 people, India accused Pakistan of support.
Pakistan firmly denies any participation and calls for an independent investigation.
Screenshot of False X Post, captured on May 16, 2025
The same clip is shared with similar claims from Facebook and Tiktok elsewhere.
Although Pakistani military sources said its troops had shot down 77 drones with many invading debris seen by AFP in cities across the country, footage circulating online predates the latest clash (a link to archive).
Reverse image search on Google using keyframes of wrongly shared videos. Similar visual effects Embedded in local news reports from Pakistani observers and daily Australia about the fire that took place near the mosque on May 28, 2024 (archived here and here).
Videos used in the news report show that the same car was parked near a roadside fire on the way to the Faisal Mosque.
According to the Daily Australia Daily Report, the fire broke out, and Islamabad and most parts of the country were hissing through heat waves.
Comparison of screenshots released by Fake Shared Videos (left) and Daily Australia in May 2024 (right)
After visiting the mosque on May 8, an AFP reporter found no evidence of drone attacks or fires nearby after distributing them at a false outpost.
The deputy commissioner of Islamabad has also posted on X and verified Facebook pages where local authorities rushed to the mosque immediately after reporting on the spread of drone attacks on social media, but “rumors proved false” (archived here and here).
“Citizens are asked not to pay attention to rumors about this.”
The conflict between India and Pakistan has spurred a wave of misinformation, and AFP has debunked the issue here.
