The fake post came to light after the government announced a national campaign to “eradicate extremism and terrorism from the country”, called Operation Azm-e-Istehkam (archived link).
The decision was taken after Pakistan faced a surge in militant attacks after the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ended a ceasefire with the government in November 2022.
The TTP is a militant group active in northwestern Pakistan that regularly attacks security forces.
The video has been shared with similar claims on X, Facebook And TikTok.
Some social media users seemed convinced that the video was authentic.
“He should be prosecuted“He is barking at Pakistani army, we cannot tolerate disrespect from our army,” one user said.
“Khawaja Asif’s brilliant analysis on the cowardly Pakistani army,” said another.
But the audio of the clip was manipulated. Asif was actually criticizing the opposition party in the original video.
Military operation
A keyword search on YouTube led to a video being published on the official YouTube account of the National Assembly of Pakistan on June 23.
The video description states that it shows a general budget debate in the lower house of the Pakistani parliament.
At the 1:09:37 point, Asif can be heard criticising the political opposition, particularly the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its ally, the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), for not supporting the Azm-e-Istehkam campaign (archived link).
“They are protesting against the martyrs. They are protesting against the Pakistani army which is making sacrifices against terrorism. Till today they have not deviated from the May 9 stand and they continue to stand by it,” Asif said.
Below is a screenshot comparison othe video in the fake post (left) and the images from the National Assembly’s YouTube account (right):
–
There appeared to be sounds of shouting in the background as Asif spoke, which was not heard in the fake post. The audio in the video in the fake post is also not in sync with Asif’s lip movements.
Asif did not criticize the military in his remarks.
Opposition parties in Pakistan have expressed concerns over the Azm-e-Istehkam operation and demanded that Parliament be taken into confidence before launching such a military operation, local media reports (archived link).
