Clip of Pakistan army chief General Asim Munir visiting LoC viral after Pahalgam attack actually from 2022

A 57-second clip showing Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, with armed troops is viral on social media. Claims have emerged online that Munir is visiting the Line of Control (LoC) to inspect war-readiness and boost the morale of Pakistani soldiers. The LoC is an over 700-km long de facto border or military control line that separates the Indian and Pakistan-administered areas of Kashmir.

The viral video comes days after terrorists shot at civilians enjoying their time at the lush meadows of the Baisaran valley near Kashmir’s Pahalgam. The dastardly terror act, on April 22, claimed the lives of at least 26 people. India has held Pakistan-backed terror groups responsible for the attack and taken several stringent steps, such as suspending the 1960 Indus Water treaty, shutting the integrated check post at the Attari border, halting access to travel under the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) and closing India’s airspace to Pakistani airplanes. Several Pakistan-based social media accounts have also been banned in the country. Needless to say, already frigid diplomatic ties between the two countries have worsened. In a high-level security meet on April 29, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the Indian armed forces “complete operational freedom to decide on the mode, targets and timing” of India’s response to the attack.

Readers must also note that the viral video surfaced online soon after social media was abuzz with rumours that the Pakistan army chief had disappeared after the Pahalgam attack. Several media outlets also published reports citing ‘unverified’ social media claims.

X page South Asian Perspective, recognised as an official organisation by the platform, shared the clip showing General Munir on April 30. The caption said that Pakistani accounts had shared a video of the army chief visiting the LoC to inspect Pakistan’s war-readiness and boost the morale of soldiers. At the time this article was written, the post had gained more than 340,000 views. (Archive)

X user Dr Shama Junejo (@ShamaJunejo) shared the same clip on April 30 with a caption that said, “Pakistani Army Chief General Asim Munir at the front posts. Karo Hamla… (bring it on)”. The post has received over 225,000 views and was reshared over 300 times. (Archive)

Several other X users shared the same clip, claiming that it’s recent footage of General Munir visiting the LoC as Pakistan gears up for war.

Click to view slideshow.

Fact Check

To verify this claim, we broke down the viral clip into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search on a few of them. This led us to a thread by an X account called Intelligence Directorate (@IntelDte). The bio of the page said, “Directorate of Pakistan Strategic Defence Force “. This thread was posted on December 3, 2022, and the first post of the thread carried the now-viral video of General Asim Munir interacting with Pakistani soldiers. However, this video did not have any voiceover, unlike the viral clip.

The caption accompanying the video said: “General Syed Asim Munir, Chief of Army Staff (#COAS) visited frontline troops in Rakhchikri Sector of Line of Control (LOC) today. COAS was briefed on latest situation along LOC & operational preparedness of the formation.”

The account @IntelDte is based in Pakistan, hence, at present, it remains banned in India. We are attaching the archive links of the original X posts in the thread and a screen recording of the first X post that had the same video. (Archive 1, 2, 3)

We then ran a relevant keyword search and found a YouTube video posted on the channel of ISPR Official; ISPR stands for Inter-Services Public Relations and is the media and public relations wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The video was posted on December 3, 2022, and the title reads, “Press Release No 108/2022 – COAS Visited Troops in Rakhchikri Sector of LoC – 3 Dec 2022 | ISPR”.

The same news was also covered by Pakistan-based media outlet Dunya News on December 3, 2022. While reporting on it, the channel aired visuals from the now-viral video.

Further, we found a news report by Al Jazeera from December 3, 2022, which said that Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir visited the LoC and vowed “not only to defend every inch of our motherland, but to take the fight back to the enemy if ever war is imposed on us”.

Therefore, it is clear that the clip showing General Asim Munir visiting the LoC to check Pakistan’s war-readiness is from three years ago and not recent.

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