Fact Check: Old video from Syria shared as Taliban executing woman in Afghanistan
A video went viral with the claim that a woman was shot in the head by the Taliban in Afghanistan for dressing "inappropriately. India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the video is from Syria and more than six years old.
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India Today Fact Check
This is a 2015 video from Syria. It shows Al-Qaeda executing a woman accused of adultery. However, the Taliban has also been committing gross human rights violations in Afghanistan.
Protests have broken out in Afghanistan against the Taliban after the Islamist militia took over the country. Women too have been participating in the protests over fears that they would've no rights under the new regime.
Amid this, a video of armed men executing a woman in public is circulating on social media with the claim that she was shot in the head by the Taliban in Afghanistan for dressing "inappropriately".
"This woman in Afghanistan was killed by Taliban for not wearing the proper cloth," reads the caption along with the video.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the video is from Syria and more than six years old.
The archived versions of the posts can be seen here and here.
Old video resurfaces
Reverse-searching keyframes from the video, we found it on multiple news websites. According to a "Daily Mail" report dated January 15, 2015, Al-Qaeda fighters publicly shot and killed a woman accused of adultery.
The incident took place at Maarat al-Numan in northwestern Syria. Even ISIS
had reportedly condemned the killing.
CNN had also covered the incident. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in its report that the Al-Qaeda's Syria wing, Al-Nusra Front, executed the woman outside the city of Idlib.
The killers had even rejected the woman's request to see her children before she died.
Therefore, it is clear that though the Taliban has been committing gross human rights abuses in Afghanistan, the viral video is six years old and from Syria.
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