No Recent Attack on Islamabad Marriott Hotel — Old 2008 Blast Photo Shared with Misleading Claim

A collage of two images, one showing a multi-storied building and the other showing a similar looking structure on fire, has gone viral as “breaking news” with the claim that it shows a recent attack on the Islamabad Marriott Hotel in which 12 Pakistani Army officers have been killed so far, and the fighting is still ongoing. One social media user wrote while sharing the collage, “🚨Breaking……The attack on Islamabad’s Mert Hotel has so far k!||€d 12 🇵🇰i Army officers, and the fighting is still ongoing. #Islamabad”

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However, after investigation, we found out that the claim is false and no such recent attack on the Islamabad Marriott Hotel has taken place. Also, while the two images indeed show the particular hotel, the image showing the building on fire is old. Here’s the fact check in detail. 

Fact Check 

We started our investigation by doing reverse image search of the two images. We found out that the one that shows the multi-storied building intact indeed shows the Islamabad Marriott Hotel. We could locate the same image in the gallery of the official website of the Islamabad Marriott Hotel.  

Next, we ran the image showing the building on fire through reverse image search which led us to a news report by The New York Times titled, “Truck Bombing at Islamabad Hotel” that included the same image along with some other images showing the building on fire. The description of the photo read, “Flames poured from the six-story Marriott Hotel in Islamabad after a huge truck bomb exploded at its gateway on Saturday evening.” and “Farooq Naeem/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images” was credited for the photo. 

Taking a cue from this, we manage to locate the original photo clicked by Naeem on the Getty Images website. The caption of the photo confirmed that image in question shows the “burning Marriott hotel following a powerful bomb blast in Islamabad on September 20, 2008.”

This helped us confirm that the image showing the Islamabad Marriott Hotel on fire is from 2008 and not recent as claimed. 

Also, we could not find any credible news report about any such recent attack on the particular Hotel. 

Conclusion

From the above investigation, it is clear that an old image from 2008 car bombing targeting the Islamabad Marriott Hotel is being falsely shared as a recent terror attack on the hotel killing several Army officers.