ISLAMABAD – A video of soldiers creating a floating bridge across a riverhas been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in online posts, alongsidemultiple references to the Pakistani military including the words “I lovePak army” overlaid on the clip. The footage is being shared in a misleadingcontext; the soldiers in the video are not from Pakistan, they are NATOtroops during an exercise in Lithuania.
Multiple online posts contain a video showing soldiers constructing atemporary bridge over a river and military vehicles crossing it aspatriotic Pakistani songs play in the background.
There is blue text overlaid on the entire 3 minute 16 second clip whichsays: “i love pak Army”. Pak is a term used to refer to Pakistan, accordingto the OED link.
For example, this link post published to Facebook by apage called “Pak-Korner” on February 21, 2019, and shared more than 10,000times since, contains the video which has been viewed 350,000 times.
The Urdu-language caption on the Facebook post says, translated to English:
“A Muslim once again has come out wearing kafan. Truth, there is no otherGod but Allah. Enemies, what do you think, we are ready for war. Long livePakistan, long live Pakistan army.” A kafanlinkisan Islamic burial shroud.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:Screenshot of misleading Facebook post
Other blue Urdu-language text that appears in the video says, translated toEnglish: “Awesome Hazara Group”. Hazara is a regionlinkinPakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The video has been also shared elsewhere on Facebook with the same caption,for example here link on a page called “PakistanSpecial” and here link where it has been viewed morethan 1,000 times since being published February 27, 2019.
It has also been shared on YouTube, for example herelink.
The video is being shared in a misleading context; it does not showPakistani soldiers but in fact is a video of NATO drills carried out inLithuania.
A Google reverse image search using keyframes obtained with the InVID videoverification tool led to thislink YouTubevideo published June 20, 2017, by AiirSource Military, a verified channelwith 1.7 million subscribers.
The original video, embedded below, has the caption: “Troops Build PontoonBridge To Move Tanks Across River During NATO Drills In Lithuania.”
NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Pakistan is not a member ofNATO.
Here link is a page on theNATO website about the group’s relations with Pakistan.
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