In first MEA briefing on Op Sindoor, 2007 footage of Iraq explosion shown as visuals of 2019 Pulwama attack
India launched Operation Sindoor on the intervening night of May 6 and 7, targeting nine terror camps in Pakistan. The strikes come follow the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 civilians were killed.
On the morning of May 7, India’s ministry of external affairs held a press conference about the military strikes. The Press Information Bureau live-streamed this. In this briefing, a video of attacks against India over the past few years was shown. About a minute into it, visuals of an explosion on a road with text saying ‘Pulwama Attack, 2019’ and ‘40 dead, 5 injured’ appeared on screen.
On February 14, 2019, 40 security forces personnel were martyred in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, in an attack carried out by a suicide bomber with alleged links to terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed.
But having tracked this video before, Alt News knew there was a mismatch.
Visuals Not of Pulwama?
In 2019 and 2020, Alt News had published fact checks about the video shown in the May 7 MEA briefing as visuals of the Pulwama attack. We had found the same video posted on YouTube in 2008; the caption suggested the visuals were from Iraq.
The 2008 YouTube video is CCTV footage by a street camera. The time stamp on the screen shows the explosion happened on February 9, 2007, 3:55:26 pm, which is 12 years before the 2019 Pulwama terror attack.
We then looked for reports on such an attack in Iraq around February 2007 and found some information on the UK government’s website on British fatalities during their military operations in Iraq. According to this, Private Luke Daniel Simpson of the 1st Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment was injured in a roadside bomb explosion on February 9, 2007. He later succumbed to injuries.
Alt News could not confirm whether the video is of the same roadside bomb as shown above. However, that much is clear that the footage shown by the Indian government during the May 7 briefing was not of the 2019 Pulwama attack.
The post In first MEA briefing on Op Sindoor, 2007 footage of Iraq explosion shown as visuals of 2019 Pulwama attack appeared first on Alt News.
News