The Afghan Taliban publicized its Abu Bakr Siddique Camp, a facility that trains fighters to battle Afghan and Coalition forces in Afghanistan.
A 19:55 long video of the Abu Bakr Siddique Camp was released on Jan. 30 by the Taliban on its propaganda website, Voice of Jihad. The footage is similar to other Taliban videos of its training facilities. Taliban fighters are shown marching in formation, training with weapons, navigating fiery obstacle courses, and conducting operations in vehicles.
At the end of the video, the Taliban fighters are shown during a nighttime operation. The maneuvers were captured through a night vision device. The Taliban fighters are using US-made weapons, including M4 assault rifles.
In other clips, the Taliban are parading around with a number of captured Afghan police Ford Ranger pickup trucks. The police trucks were supplied to the Afghan police by the US military.
The Abu Bakr Siddique Camp was previously promoted by the Taliban in June 2017, however it was called the “Abu Bakr Saddiq Camp.” The location of this camp has not been disclosed.
Jihadist training camps in Afghanistan
The Taliban has publicly flaunted at least 17 of its training camps since the end of 2014. In late 2015, the Taliban announced that its Khalid bin Walid Camp operated 12 satellite facilities throughout Afghanistan, and had the capacity to “train up to 2,000 recruits at a single time.” Additionally, it said the Khalid bin Walid Camp “trains recruits in eight provinces (Helmand, Kandahar, Ghazni, Ghor, Saripul, Faryab, Farah and Maidan Wardak) and “has around 300 military trainers and scholars.”
Other jihadist groups, including al Qaeda, are known to operate camps inside Afghanistan. In 2015, the US raided an al Qaeda camp in Bermal district in Paktika, and two others in the Shorabak district in Kandahar province. The outgoing commander of US Forces in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, said that one of the camps in Shorabak was the largest in Afghanistan since the US invaded in 2001. Al Qaeda has also operated camps in Kunar and Nuristan.
Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, a Pakistani jihadist group that is closely allied with al Qaeda, “operates terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan,” the US government stated in 2014. The Turkistan Islamic Party, the Islamic Jihad Union, and the Imam Bukhari Jamaat, an Uzbek jihadist group that operates in both Syria and Afghanistan, have all claimed to operate camps inside Afghanistan. Coalition forces have also raided Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan suicide training camps in Samagan and Sar-i-Pul.
Video from the Taliban’s Abu Bakr Siddique Camp
The #Taliban are using captured US-supplied Afghan National Police Ford Ranger pickup trucks in training. Can count at least 8 together in one scene. From the group’s video of the Abu Bakr Siddique Camp. pic.twitter.com/6EzYimorJj
— Long War Journal (@LongWarJournal) February 2, 2018
Taliban fighters practice in the snow with US-made weapons that very likely were seized from Afghan security forces. Footage from the group’s Abu Bakr Siddique Camp. pic.twitter.com/BRY31uMEVB
— Long War Journal (@LongWarJournal) February 2, 2018
Taliban fighters march in the open, exercise, practice martial arts, etc. with flags, vehicles in full display. More footage of Abu Bakr Siddique Camp. pic.twitter.com/m8vjghU7JA
— Long War Journal (@LongWarJournal) February 2, 2018
3 Comments
Could be pak isi is promoting this video in the hopes that it can tell us commanders, see all the camps are in Afghanistan not inside pak
I am never impressed by the “training camp” videos. In my opinion, the training camps are as real as the fight scene in the last video. Almost all look like videos shot on the side of the road. This group of videos looks the same. Any group of 30 people could make a video like this anywhere or a video like they typically release and call a ‘training camp’.
I have a feeling these guys film these videos as a tertiary bonus to their operations. Shot on the way to or from missions. These serve as recruitment videos later, as if they are saying “Look how safe it is to be us, we can drive around with flags, bunch up, party, whatever we want to do.”
I am also of the opinion that the more they show of the terrain around them, as they have in some videos, the more they be away from their usual area of operations. Perhaps some videos are shot in lands that would be considered unfriendly to Taliban so that when the terrain is correctly identified the locals are left to explain to the police how they were NOT involved in any way. The Talibs could even make a video then threaten to release it in order to get something from the locals since they would rather not have the ANP roll in demanding explanations.
What I do find interesting is the equipment. None of it looks Afghan, the weapons, vehicles, OK, the flags might be “homespun”.
I would be very interested to know the typical movement patterns of groups like this. Do they stay together as a group always just rolling along, singing a song? Do they come together for operations then melt back into their villages? Do they come all the way from Pakistan then return? What happens to the trucks when they park them? do they keep trucks they take or do they abandon, hide, strip or sell them?
Do the trucks make it back to the police bases like empty shopping carts get back to the supermarkets?
I don’t imagine Lo-jack has any contracts with the government. That would make way too much sense and cost WAY TOO FEW dollars.
Perhaps a corporation like HESCO who always impress me with the range of products they make, carry and can quickly bring affordably to the market, could get involved with vehicle modification during the manufacturing process. It is not hard at all, to install during actual manufacture, devices in the vehicle itself, the actual frame of the vehicle, sensors with self charging capabilities that could be turned on remotely and would remain undetected until turned on or even while on.. The idea that they can drive off with a Humvee and its just gone is a joke! TOTAL JOKE!
So these trucks they are seen driving around in. Where are they now? In Taliban garages hidden from everyone except all the locals? parked out in the open with the flags on them waiting for an oil change? For sale in Pakistan as I type? Burned out on the side of the road?
Where ever they leave these vehicles and in whatever state they leave them in, they are asource of income for any locals.
I wonder how much a used starter, alternator or fuel injectors, manufactured in 2016 can be bought in the markets of Kabul, Jalalabad and Kandahar for. There is much to be learned about the insurgency by looking at the black markets.
I think I have seen one, perhaps two training camp videos that actually had elements of what one might think of as a training camp. Everything else looks like stops on the side of the road.
When the Romans marched they would build a camp wherever they were. Every day they would do this. They would also train in the mornings, thus Roman training camps were everywhere the Romans were, whenever they were there.
I suspect most or all Taliban training camps are “on the fly”.
“The Taliban has publicly flaunted at least 17 of its training camps since the end of 2014.”
Didn’t the Pentagon state that it had 20 or more MOABs after dropping one on the cave complex? Can’t our drones use heat sensors to locate these camps so that a C-130 can send the terrorists to their hellish rewards with MOABs? Don’t raid these camps since the process is too slow while risking the lives of exceptional US soldiers in this long forgotten war. Forgotten until there are US casualties that can be blamed on Trump.