Man dangling from helicopter in Kandahar viral video was fixing flag: Report

A video of a man "hanging" from a US Blackhawk being flown in Kandahar went viral on social media after the now-deleted account of Talib Times, claimed by the Taliban as their official handle, posted the video. Reports said that the video surfaced on Monday just after the US troops left the country and went viral for two reasons. First, the Taliban are not believed to have trained pilots. So any flying video from Kandahar is creating interest on social media. Second, a man was seen 'hanging' from the helicopter. Republican senator Ted Cruz shared the video and slammed Joe Biden's 'Afghanistan catastrophe', claiming that the Taliban hanged a man from an American Blackhawk helicopter.

After the video went viral, some social media accounts claimed that it was not what it looked like as the man seen dangling from the helicopter was actually a Taliban fighter who was trying to install a Taliban flag from the air. The Blackhawk was also being flown by an Afghan pilot, training in the United States and the United Arab Emirates, and not a Taliban. Asvaka news agency also posted the same video claiming that the Black Hawk was seen over the Kandahar governor office. Reports claimed that the man was actually trying to install a flag on the governor's office, from the air. But it did not work in the end.

Reuters Factchack claimed that a closer shot of the video shows that the "man is alive, despite the contrary claims".

Following this, Ted Cruz deleted his former tweet and wrote, "It turns out the post I shared w/ a video of Taliban “hanging a man” from a helicopter may be inaccurate. So I deleted the tweet. What remains accurate is: The Taliban are brutal terrorists. We left them millions in US military equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters," he wrote.

(With agency inputs)