February 13, 2020 | FDD's Long War Journal

Taliban fighters train at Mullah Mansoor ‘Military Camp’

February 13, 2020 | FDD's Long War Journal

Taliban fighters train at Mullah Mansoor ‘Military Camp’

The Taliban has released yet another set of photographs from one of its military training camps. In the images, Taliban fighters are training in the open in a mountainous area that should be easily identified by the U.S. and Afghan militaries.

The latest images were published on Feb. 10 at Voice of Jihad, the Taliban’s official website. The Taliban identified the camp as the “Shaheed Amirul Mumineen Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansoor Military Camp.” It is named after Mullah Mansoor, the second emir of the Taliban who was killed in a U.S. drone strike inside Pakistan in May 2016. Before his death, Mansoor accepted Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri’s pledge of allegiance.

The images are largely unremarkable as the Taliban has released dozens of images and videos showing its fighters in training (see Taliban promotes ‘mujahideen’ graduates from one of its military training camps from Feb. 5).

What makes these images interesting is that the location of this training site should be easily deduced by the U.S. and Afghan militaries. The Taliban fighters are training in a mountainous area with easily identifiable features. The Taliban provides multiple angles of the surrounding mountains.

As with previous photo sets and videos, the Taliban is training its recruits in the open during broad daylight while flying its flags without fear of reprisal.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD’s Long War Journal.

Issues:

Afghanistan Al Qaeda Jihadism Military and Political Power The Long War