But the version released by Mr. Ghani’s office erased the large digital clock showing “Zulu time” — the military term for Coordinated Universal Time — and a red fire alarm behind Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Ghani, in what would be a giveaway that it was an American military facility.
Credit
Office of the President of Afghanistan
Mr. Ghani’s office did not immediately respond to queries about why its version of the photo was different. Mr. Tillerson and his staff, who traveled to Iraq after leaving Afghanistan, did not immediately respond early Tuesday to questions about the discrepancy.
“There is no question that the photo has been manipulated,” said Hany Farid, an expert in photo forensics and a professor of computer science at Dartmouth College.
Mr. Farid said the method was most likely done through Photoshop, editing software that can delete objects and refill the space. But this particular alteration was easily detectable.
The cable on the wall to power the clock and the fire alarm was not completely obscured in the altered version, instead appearing to fade into the wall.
Security concerns for the visit of someone as high profile as Mr. Tillerson are justified because of the Taliban’s resurgence. Last month more than 50 rockets landed at and around Kabul airport during Defense Secretary James Mattis’s visit.
But many Afghans may see the altered photo of Mr. Tillerson’s visit as evidence of a government effort to twist facts to package a positive narrative, both to its international partners as well as its citizens.
While the photo manipulation may be new, the Afghan government has changed facts before.
On at least one occasion, when the Taliban have overrun the center of a district, the government has relocated the local administration compound to another area so it can say “no, the district has not fallen.”
