A video published by former Tolo News reporter Muslim Shirzad on Tuesday appears to show hundreds of Afghans walking west toward Afghanistan’s vast border with Iran.

The video shows hundreds of alleged Afghans traveling on foot through a dusty mountain pass. Some groups of travelers gather in the background while in the foreground, a steady stream of people pours through the gap in the surrounding mountains.

“Catastrophe: An unfortunate generation that illegally going from Afghanistan to Iran [sic],” Shirzad captioned the video in an accompanying statement:

The Indian news site Times Now News published clips of Shirzad’s video on August 31. After reviewing the video’s content, the news site concluded that Afghans were “traveling to Iran as Taliban takes control after US Forces completely withdrew from Afghanistan [sic].”

“We are seeing hundreds of them [Afghans] trying to make their way into Iran,” a Times Now News correspondent identified only as Deepak said during a live, on-air analysis of the video.

“You’re going to see multiple exoduses like this that are going to take place,” Deepak predicted.

“These are visuals that are coming where there … we are seeing hundreds of them trying to make their way into Iran. Afghanistan, of course, shares its borders with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and even Pakistan,” the analyst noted.

 

Afghans walk along fences as they arrive in Pakistan through the Pakistan-Afghanistan border crossing point in Chaman on August 24, 2021, following the Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan. (AFP via Getty Images)

“You’re going to see infiltration at all of these borders,” he further predicted. “And how the countries are receiving them, are going to treat them,  will be another question, especially at these borders.”

“And while of course people try to illegally make their way into bordering countries, they could be faced by, you know, more issues there,” Deepak added.

Afghanistan shares a 572-mile-long border with Iran. The Taliban terror group captured a strategic Afghan-Iran border crossing known as Islam Qala on July 9 as part of a successful military offensive launched in May to regain full control of Afghanistan. The jihadist group invaded Kabul, Afghanistan’s national capital, on August 15, in a culmination of its months-long campaign to reconquer Afghanistan, which it previously ruled from 1996-2001. The fall of Kabul’s U.S.-backed government to the terror group prompted a mass exodus from the city, with thousands of people leaving via nearby Hamid Karzai International Airport.

U.S. Air Force loadmasters and pilots assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, load passengers aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III in support of the Afghanistan evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), Afghanistan, August 24, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Donald R. Allen)

The Taliban attempted to hamper evacuations at the airport by blocking entrances and exits and attacking people gathered outside the facility. Stampedes and Taliban bullets reportedly killed at least 20 people, while a suicide bombing at the airport killed more than 100 people, including 13 U.S. military personnel, on August 26. The Islamic State, previously a marginal player in Afghanistan, took responsibility for the attack.

The chaos at Hamid Karzai International Airport persuaded many people in Kabul to flee the city via alternate land routes to Pakistan. At least hundreds of Afghans had already fled an impending Taliban rule for Tajikistan in May and early August, creating a border crisis for the former Soviet state.