Were images of a crashed helicopter and destroyed homes taken less than 24 hours after the Taliban took control of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city? No, that's not true: The images are stills of multiplayer maps from the video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and are not related to the conflict in Afghanistan in any way. Additionally, the images were posted on a satire page.
The claim appeared in an August 17, 2021, Facebook post (archived here) by the Facebook page Allratesmatter. The post features digitized images of a crashed helicopter in a residential area with destroyed homes and rubble. The caption is:
This picture was taken in Kabul less than 24 hours after the taliban took control...
This is what the post looked like on Facebook on August 18, 2021:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Aug 18 18:06:54 2021 UTC)
Lead Stories ran a reverse image search on Google that revealed that the images are stills of multiplayer maps from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, a first-person shooter video game that takes place in Russia, Ukraine and an unnamed Middle Eastern country, among other locations. Screenshots of the stills in the Google search are included below:
(Source: Google search screenshot taken on Wed Aug 18 17:52:34 2021 UTC)
(Source: Google search screenshot taken on Wed Aug 18 17:52:59 2021 UTC)
According to its "About" section, Allratesmatter is a satire page:
A Navy satire page dedicated to fighting the injustice of striping our ratings and killing any time honored traditions. Beware: no safe space here
Kabul did fall to the Taliban on August 15, 2021. These images from Getty show the state of the city as the Taliban advanced. This image from The Associated Press shows the Taliban in the Afghan presidential palace.
