Disinformation: Old video used to stoke fears of Taliban invading Tajikistan

Man killed in 2015 falsely portrayed as leading a new attack against Tajikistan.

On 9 March 2025, a pro-Taliban account on X (formerly Twitter), Fatih Heravi, posted a one-minute video showing at least 12 alleged Tajik Taliban (Ansarullah) fighters armed with AK-47s, a machine gun and a mortar, marching across a mountainous area and appearing to shoot at a target (not visible). The video featured a man threatening Tajikistan with invasion on account of alleged persecution of Muslims in the country, saying in Tajik:

“Thanks to the generosity and mercy of the Lord we are moving forward step-by-step. Inshallah we hope that someday we will be in Tajikistan in the capital Dushanbe. With this weapon of dignity and chastity we will not allow the cruelty to continue against the people of Tajikistan. We ask dear Muslim brothers to join your mujahideen brothers. Join these long columns of mujahideen”.

The video as posted by Fatih Heravi was accompanied by the following text in Pashto: “Heroes are promising (giving good news of) freedom, and will install the Prophetic flag on Dushanbe, God willing”.

Later the same day, Green Trend of Afghanistan (GTA) — a movement led by Amrullah Saleh, former first vice president and head of Afghan intelligence of the previous government — reposted the video on their Russian-language X account (not on their Farsi or English accounts), claiming that the Taliban was holding military exercises near the border with Tajikistan, with the goal of preparing for an invasion.

The video reposted by GTA has Russian subtitles translating the speech from Tajik, and an imposed GTA logo (see Figure 2). The post urges the Tajik authorities and Russia’s military base in Tajikistan to prepare response measures, stating: “The situation looks extremely serious. We hope that the Tajik security forces and the command of the Russian 201st military base will pay attention to this and take the necessary measures”.

As of 13 March 2025, the video has been reposted at least 458 times on X, including by Mahfil, a pro-Taliban account posting Turkish with 50K followers, and War Noir, a regional security analyst with over 171.3K followers.

Users reposting the video have predominantly accompanied the content with sentiments of concern for a potential invasion: for example, on 9 March 2025, Russian commentator on Afghanistan Andrei Serenko reposted the GTA video, claiming that the video was “convincing evidence” that “militants from terrorist organisations [VEOs] stationed in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are conducting exercises to invade Tajikistan”.

However, a number of indicators suggest that the video is highly unlikely to be a recent production. Firstly, the weather conditions shown in the video, allegedly taken in Badakhshan, differ significantly from conditions reported on the ground: both weather monitoring and recently taken footage in the province have indicated that it was snowing in both Afghanistan and Tajikistan’s provinces of Badakhshan from 3 to 9 March 2025, and that the mountains were still covered in snow and showed no signs of green. In the video, the militants are shown walking on dry ground and the surrounding landscape is green.

Users on X were also observed claiming the video as recycled previous content, as well as identifying the speaker as an Ansarullah member killed in 2015. For example, X user Mahmoud Afghan, commenting on a recirculation of the video, claimed to identify the man speaking in the video: “This video is 8 years old, and this person is called Mullah Hashim Tajiki, who was martyred 8 years ago in the battle of Yamgan district of Badakhshan”.

The man speaking in the video is confirmed to be Mullah Hashim Tajiki, an Ansarullah member killed in Yamgan district in 2015. The video most likely is a documentation of the clashes between Afghan Taliban and Ansarullah forces against the Afghan government forces in the area around Warduj district of Afghanistan in 2015.

On 12 March 2025, former Republic government military commander General Haroon Mubarez posted a video statement from Amanuddin Mansoor, the Taliban’s commander of the 217 Omari Corps and former governor of Badakhshan.

In the statement, Mansoor’s statement referred to a previous video in which he claimed that, with the Taliban Supreme Leader’s approval, he could capture Tajikistan. Mansoor, a Tajik Taliban commander from Badakhshan, stated that the video was old, and that his remarks had been taken out of context. He emphasised that, since the Doha Agreement, the Taliban’s policy has been to avoid threatening any country from Afghan territory and to maintain good relations with its neighbours, including Tajikistan.

The original video, posted by Mubarez on 24 February 2025, showed Mansoor seated among his fighters, describing Tajikistan as a weak state that could be easily overrun. He noted that the primary obstacle was Russia but argued that, due to its preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, Russia would not pose a significant challenge.

It is likely that the Green Trend of Afghanistan reposted the video of the alleged Ansarullah fighters in an attempt to alarm Russia, with the view to disrupt Russia’s intention to delist the Taliban as a terrorist organisation. Additionally, this may have also been an attempt to distance Central Asian governments from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan by spreading disinformation regarding a potential Taliban invasion of Tajikistan.