FACT CHECK: No, This Video Does Not Show The People Of Kabul Welcoming The Taliban Into The City

A post shared on Facebook claims to show a video of the people of Kabul, Afghanistan, welcoming the Taliban into the city.

Verdict: False

The video was filmed in the Afghan city of Kandahar, not Kabul.

Fact Check:

Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, was taken over by the Taliban on Aug. 15, prompting former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to flee the country, according to The New York Times. A video shared widely on Facebook and Twitter claims to show the people of Kabul welcoming the Taliban into the city.

In the short video, hundreds of people can be heard shouting in the streets adjacent to a large stone gate. The Facebook post’s caption reads in part, “The people of Kabul come out from their houses for the welcome of Taliban and gathered on the entry gate of Kabul.”

The video, however, was actually taken in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. The large gate visible in the footage matches the one in a photo available through Getty Images and in a video published by Reuters, both of which stated the location is Kandahar. Reuters identified the matching archway in the video it published as the “Eid Gah Darwaza” gate and reported that people hoisted a flag up a flagpole on top of it. Both the gate and the nearby mosque that appear in the Facebook video can be found on Google Maps in Kandahar.

The Taliban took control of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city and the birthplace of the Taliban, on Aug. 13, according to Al Jazeera. (RELATED: Did CNN Describe The Taliban Takeover Of Afghanistan As ‘Violent But Mostly Peaceful’ In A Chyron?)

After the capital city of Kabul fell to the Taliban, footage of Afghans running alongside and climbing onto a U.S. military plane in attempts to escape the country circulated widely online, according to the Associated Press. Thousands of Afghan citizens have gathered outside Kabul’s airport in recent days seeking to flee the country, USA Today reported.

People in Kabul and other Afghan cities took to the streets to protest the Taliban’s rule on Thursday before the Taliban dispersed the groups using violence, The New York Times reported.

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