A video showing a man accidentally shooting himself while fiddling with a gun is being shared on social media with a claim that a Taliban militant shot himself while trying to figure out how an American gun works.
The caption of the post insinuates that the militant was trying to use a gun left behind by the US troops. “अमेरिकी हथियार छोड़ गये..पर ये नहीं बता गये कि चलाना कैसे है…”, the caption of the post reads.
(Translation: Americans left their weapons.. but did not explain how to operate…)
Here’s the link to the above post. Similar posts can be seen here, here, here and here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the post and found the claim to be false.
Upon extracting keyframes of the video and putting them through Reverse Image Search, we found a report on a Mexican website, Laneta Noticias, dated February 6, 2019, carrying snapshots of the video. The headline in Spanish can be translated to, “They record a subject carrying an AK-47; blows his head off by accident”.
The report mentions that this video of a person carrying an AK-47 is being shared online but it does not mention the location of the video.
The footage has been attributed to Liveleak, a website known for sharing gory and violent videos. We found that the website has now been shut down.
We found a snapshot of the video in a report on another Mexican website published on February 9, 2019.
The location of the video was not mentioned in the report either.
Further, we found that similar videos were uploaded on Youtube, Twitter and Instagram in February 2019. The links can be found here, here, here and here.
Further, we found that the US announced troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on November 17, 2020, whereas the video is in circulation since 2019.
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