Afghan jihadist camp

Terrorists who trained at camps in Afghanistan and fought in insurgencies around the world during the 1990s

An Afghan jihadist camp, or an Afghan training camp, is a term used to describe a camp or facility used for militant training located in Afghanistan. At the time of the September 11 attacks in 2001, Indian intelligence officials estimated that there were over 120 jihadist camps operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, run by a variety of militant groups.[1]

During the Afghan Civil War, the country was in a disordered state which was advantageous for international terrorists in the 1990s, especially al-Qaeda and various other groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed. These camps would eventually be used for training jihadists who would fight in various places including Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, the Philippines, Palestine, and Xinjiang (China).[2] In 2002, journalists with The New York Times examined the sites of several former training camps, finding 5,000 documents.[3] According to The New York Times:

The documents show that the training camps were focused largely on creating an army to support the Taliban, which was waging a long ground war against the Northern Alliance. During the period of the Bush administration officials described the camps as factories churning out terrorists.

On July 25, 2007, scholars at the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy published a study that named over two dozen training camps allegedly attended by Guantanamo captives.[4] In the al-Qaeda document, Military Studies in the Jihad Against Tyrants, a series of rules for training camps were laid out.[5]

  1. ^ Bindra, Satinder (2001-09-19). "India identifies terrorist training camps". CNN. Archived from the original on 2008-12-10. Sources told CNN that more than 120 camps are operating in the two countries.
  2. ^ Hoodbhoy, Pervez (2005). "Afghanistan and the Genesis of Global Jihad". Peace Research. 37 (1): 15–30. JSTOR 24469676.
  3. ^ David Rohde, C. J. Chivers (2002-03-17). "Qaeda's Grocery Lists And Manuals of Killing". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  4. ^ Felter, Joseph; Brachman, Jarret (July 25, 2007). "CTC Report: An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries" (PDF). Combating Terrorism Center.
  5. ^ Post, Jerrold (2004). Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: THE AL-QAEDA TRAINING MANUAL. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: USAF Counterproliferation Center.