Viral visual shows Afghan official seeking forgiveness from Pakistan amid recent conflict

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team reviewed this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan observed the viral visual and compared it with Geo News Urdu’s original social posts.

Posts from PML-N supporters on social media platform X on October 12, 2025, shared an alleged social post from Geo News Urdu quoting an Afghan official asking Pakistan for forgiveness amid the recent conflict between the two countries. However, the post is fake.

Intense border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan started late on the night of Oct 11 and continued into the next morning. The Inter-Services Public Relations said that 23 troops were martyred and 200 Taliban and affiliated terrorists were killed when Islamabad responded to aggression by Kabul.

HOW IT STARTED

On Oct 12, a user on social media platform X, who appears to be a PML-N supporter based on his previous posts, posted a social post of Geo News Urdu quoting an Afghan official asking for forgiveness after border clashes.

The text in the post said: “Indeed, God loves those who forgive. We ask for forgiveness from Pakistan.”

Neither the post nor the visual identified who the official in the image was.

The post gained over 120,000 views.

The post was similarly shared by other Users on X as can be seen here, here, here, here, and here.

Some users shared the image and were confused about its authenticity.

The visual was also shared on social media platform Facebook, as can be seen here, here and here.

The same image was also shared by some PTI supporters on X, as can be seen here and here.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality and keen public interest in the matter.

A reverse image search yielded a February 13, 2023, news report from Arab News which showed that the official was Afghanistan’s Minister of Interior Affairs Sirajuddin Haqqani.

Meanwhile, a keyword search yielded no credible news reports from mainstream international and Afghan news outlets on Haqqani or any other Afghan official having made any such statement or appeal for forgiveness.

Checking the visuals shared by Geo News Urdu on its Facebook and Instagram accounts also did not show the image with the quote attributed to Haqqani anywhere.

Comparing the visual with other social posts of Geo News Urdu shows that the outlet either mentions the subject in the title or includes their name when attributing a quote to them.

Contacted for a response, Geo News Digital Output Head Manzar Elahi also said regarding the visual: “It is fake.”

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim that a viral visual shows a quote of Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani seeking forgiveness from Pakistan amid the recent conflict is false.

The viral visual is fake and no evidence exists that the Afghan official has uttered the alleged remarks or Geo News Urdu shared the visual.

Evidence and References

February 13, 2023, Arab News report:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2250366/amp

October 13, 2025, Geo News Urdu post:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1407119114412778&set=pb.100053441076101.-2207520000&type=3