Captures from a video of an attack on a Taliban BMP.

January 25, 2002 3:57 PM

Captures from a video of an attack on a Taliban BMP. All I have to say is "holy crap." Graphic. Interesting. Discuss amongst yourselves.
posted by manero (24 comments total)

Completely untrue.

I deleted a post leading to the same images almost a year ago (for being too graphic and not having anything worth discussing). It's some video footage from some random tank/mine explosion perhaps in afghanistan, but certainly not during this war time.
posted by mathowie at 4:03 PM on January 25, 2002

Even if it's not from the current war, it's still pretty disgusting and saddening.
posted by SweetJesus at 4:05 PM on January 25, 2002

Really. hmm. A record of deleted posts would be nice, but oh well. Thanks for the heads up, guys.
posted by manero at 4:07 PM on January 25, 2002

Where'd you find it manero - just out of curiosity. (Not morbid, but as in 'who is passing it off as real')
posted by kokogiak at 4:08 PM on January 25, 2002

It got passed onto me by a friend.... mostly word of mouth then I suppose.
posted by manero at 4:10 PM on January 25, 2002

Rotten has an explanation of the image, suggesting that it is in fact soviet era.
posted by phatboy at 4:16 PM on January 25, 2002

This clip has been floating around the internet for quite some time. I suspect it is in Chechnya. Also, this clip is part of a series depicting the destruction of various military vehicles in ambush attacks.
posted by rotifer at 4:18 PM on January 25, 2002

Snuff photography...
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 4:19 PM on January 25, 2002

The US military would never release anything like this. You’ll notice in all smart bomb footage and such no human deaths are ever shown. Stuff like this is classified.
posted by raaka at 4:21 PM on January 25, 2002

[this is old and refuted]
posted by adampsyche at 4:28 PM on January 25, 2002

I've been involved in following net legends for years, e.g. newsgroup alt.folklore.urban, and the one thing I've never understood is the impulse that leads people to dress something up with completely bogus corroborating details. Especially something like this -- what the heck is wrong with saying "I got this sent to me, pretty itneresting, nobody knows where it's from"? No, they gotta put a timestamp and an idiotic story around it.
posted by dhartung at 4:30 PM on January 25, 2002

I suppose dressing it up as Taliban casualties could be considered propaganda.
posted by manero at 5:00 PM on January 25, 2002

I'm surprised at how Rotten has almost become, dare I say, respectable? The scary part is I trust them sometimes more than other media outlets.
posted by geoff. at 5:05 PM on January 25, 2002

geoff, check out www.brutal.com. Run by the rotten.com people, it's a bunch of selected news links. good stuff.
posted by manero at 5:07 PM on January 25, 2002

In a humour vein I was going to add simply : "photshopped." But here:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2002030016-2002041322,00.html

I have not seen this piece on American media but perhaps I missed it. If not shown, it tells me (us?) how we are being kept pretty much in the dark. And I then imagine that releasing "real" photos like the one posted here would be out of the question.
posted by Postroad at 6:08 PM on January 25, 2002

From the link Postroad uhm, posted :P
Amid growing concern that powerful pockets of resistance loyal to Osama bin Laden remain in Afghanistan, an American soldier was wounded in the foot and 15 Taleban and al-Qaeda guerrillas were killed yesterday in a gunfight north of Kandahar.

Goodness, what an epic struggle. Anyway, has anyone noticed a significant dropoff in stories about how the war is going?
posted by holycola at 7:32 PM on January 25, 2002

Damn, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to condemn you all for moral relativism.
posted by Hildago at 7:55 PM on January 25, 2002

*sigh*

These are real photos, and they come off a video that I have seen.

These are NOT Taliban. It is NOT in Afghanistan.

These are Soviet troops in Chechnya. The video was taken by Chechnya fighter who was part of the ambush that set the mine that destroyed the BMP pictured.

Since it has come to light that many Chechnyan Rebels were Al Qaeda trained, it is possible that this video was used in propaganda and recruiting purposes by Al Qaeda.
posted by da5id at 8:25 PM on January 25, 2002

15 Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters killed an one US soldier with shot in the foot? I can't find the article in question, but I am betting it doesn't say how he came by the foot injury... Sounds like the sort of injury you are likely to get while walking with your gun pointing down than in a fire fight. In fact I managed to shoot myself in the foot with a paintball gun just as we were all being given a safety talk.
posted by sycophant at 9:25 PM on January 25, 2002

No, the US soldier didn't die, but he was shipped back so it's a 'casualty'. In the artical I read they did mention another US guy being killed, but I don't know if they were talking about the CIA guy killed in the prison thing.

Anyway, I think the lack of news about 'how the war's going' is slowing down because it's mostly over.
posted by delmoi at 8:55 AM on January 26, 2002

Nah, the war won't be over until at least the primaries.
posted by Hildago at 2:26 PM on January 26, 2002

Really? The war's over? Has terrorism been eradicated? Has Osama or Mullah Omar been captured? Did I miss something?
posted by chicobangs at 6:10 PM on January 26, 2002

This is from a real video. I was the one that posted the video about a year ago. Got it off a russian news site, can't remember which one though.
posted by revbrian at 7:09 PM on January 26, 2002

Are you sure the video isn't partially faked? It seems very odd that the humans would travel farther than the smoke in the image. Also, the fact that they are an entirely different color from the rest of the smoke, and that they seem to fall outside of the brightness range of the photo... it just screams "After Effected to Perfection" to me.

Additionally, a Paint Shop Pro eyedropper analysis of the image sequence has the darkest pixels on a person in the first image being about twice as bright as the average pixels on the "flying" people in the lower image. Additionally, the "flying" people are signifigantly darker than the occluded portion of the lense in the same frame. This just can't be, at least based on my understanding of photography.
posted by Ptrin at 8:16 PM on January 26, 2002