Debunking Misleading Video on Ethiopian Army

Tigray forces capture an entire Ethiopian Army brigade.

This is how accounts that shared this video promoted it as evidence

of the collapse of Abiy Ahmed's forces.

But it is actually misleading. The story began after

an account called Samir Channel, followed by more than one million

users, posted the clip on September 25,

garnering thousands of views, and dozens of accounts

widely reshared it as evidence of the collapse of the Ethiopian Army.

Al Jazeera's Open Source Unit traced the clip.

The result: the video is old and does not document the capture of a

military brigade during the current fighting. How did we verify this?

Come with me. First, we zoomed in on the clip.

The first clue was here, in the corner of the video. It is the logo of

an Eritrean media platform called ATV Asena,

which covers news in Eritrea and the Horn of

Africa. We searched the platform's accounts.

This is the platform. We searched its accounts, but found no

recent posting of the video, raising doubts about

its timing. Second, we used the InVID tool.

We broke the video down into still frames, then

ran the most prominent ones through reverse image search.

This is where the evidence emerged. The same clip was posted

on the platform's channel. Watch with me. The date

is July seventh, two thousand twenty-one,

nearly five years before the current clashes.

Third, we reviewed reports published about the event, and it turned out that

the footage dates back to after

Tigrayan forces recaptured Mekelle, the regional capital, in

two thousand twenty-one. At the time, the forces led

more than seven thousand Ethiopian army prisoners and forces

loyal to it on foot and in trucks through

the city's streets to detention centers, according to

reports published by The Telegraph and The Guardian.

Look at the publication date here. So,

why did the video spread now? Accounts recycled real footage

from a previous war and linked it to the renewed fighting

and the formation of an opposition alliance against Abiy Ahmed's government

to present it as evidence of the Ethiopian army's collapse in the battles

current. And this is precisely where the deception lies, the fighting

in northern Ethiopia is real, but this clip does not document

the current fighting. In conclusion, there are misleading clips.

And here is a correction.