Yesterday, Reuters and other news outlets that were given a rare tour of a Taliban training camp in operation in South Waziristan told us something that many of us already knew: the Taliban are still operating in the tribal agency, despite a Pakistani military operation that began in the fall of 2009. The video above shows the Taliban training at a camp in the mountains of South Waziristan. The article [excerpted below] describes a journalist’s visit. Note that the journalists encountered “fighters from Turkmenistan” while moving to the training camp. From Reuters:
Taliban commanders escorted a small group of journalists, including a Reuters reporter, to the remote camp.
To get there without running into army checkpoints, they drove to North Waziristan, where the army has limited control, and then walked uphill for 15 hours over rugged terrain.
On the way they came across fighters from Turkmenistan, a reminder that parts of Pakistan are a global hub for militants.
What they discovered at the training ground is that the Taliban are highly disciplined and determined.
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10 Comments
Interesting…a .50 with a Leupold.
How’d that find it’s way….way up there.
Pakistan is a sad joke on the rest of the world. Under its nuclear umbrella it sponsors global terrorism. And the worst part is that we pay them to shoot at us!
Taliban’s are never loyal to ISLAM. Taliban’s are American agents. they are destroying Pakistan. They are not true Muslims and this was their true colors.They are fighting to whom???. Islam is a religion of peace and what they are doing is this is their religion. Please all look at this link what are Taliban’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bbnG9CkRQc
I watched the vid and read the link. I feel almost as sorry for the young men in the report as I did for those poor children freed from that cruel madrassa the other day. How would you like to be 17 years of age, with only rags to wear, an AK47 your only possession, and violent death your future? God help Pakistan.
The ‘circle jogging’ is most impressive. Is Simon Says part of the curriculum?
At time .47 one of those guys appears to be holding an american 3D50 sniper rife. Gosh, where did they get that?
Where do you think? The PAK Army GAVE it to them.
The USA should help alright, help them out of their misery, we would be doing them a favor if we sent over some fully loaded B-52s bringing them the aid they need.
Gotta get something off my chest, especially since the New York Times apparently censors comments that a respectfully critical. Bill Keller (former NYT editor) had an astonishingly naive report in the NYT on how Pakistan was so misunderstood and why their duplicitous actions were understandable. Presumably this includes why they are justified in attacking our troops in Afghanistan. The graphic accompanying the article was also in extremely poor taste, showing Pakistani soldiers fleeing from a NATO helicopter attack. The NYT felt proud enough about the image to devote a section explaining how they came about creating this remarkable propaganda graphic for Al Qaeda and Taliban recruits.
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/bill-kellers-graphic-account-from-pakistan/
Mr. Keller needs to visit and talk to our troops in forward bases instead of eating eggs benedict with the ISI to get the true picture of poor, misunderstood and picked-upon Pakistan!
That’s one small training camp, unless they didn’t show the whole thing. Looks like about ~15 people.
To me, it shows more of their degraded capabilities. I think I’ve seen larger training camps inside Afghanistan.