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Afghanistan
Latest pictures show Isil training camp in Afghanistan
2015-12-10
[Telegraph] The images show masked forces of Evil training near Afghanistan's mountainous border with Pakistain

Hooded forces of Evil pose with handguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. They wear camouflage print and the black flag of jihad flies in the background.

The latest pictures of forces of Evil from the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) are familiar except for one twist. They were taken not in the deserts of Syria or Iraq, but in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, where Isil's latest "province" spans the border with Pakistain.

Isil has declared the birth of "Wilayat Khorasan" -- or Khorasan province -- in the area of Afghanistan that was once al-Qaeda's heartland.

Existing radical groups, including the Haqqani network and factions of the Taliban, have declared allegiance to Isil. One training camp is named after "Sheikh Jalaluddin" -- or Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the Death Eater network that carries his surname, who died last year.

The photographs, distributed on Twitter, show about 40 forces of Evil "graduating" after receiving weapons and fitness training. Isil now claims to have three such training camps in Afghanistan, one of which is named after the movement's leader, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us....
No doubt Rantburg's experts will get more information from the photos than I. But what I saw in the first photo was 19 men in very pretty blue camouflage versions of the native dress and ski masks -- which have to be dreadfully hot as well as severely limiting their ability to see -- trying their very best to do a single punch drill in horse stance, led by a trainer who absolutely did not know what he was doing: his shoulders were not square, his feet, knees, and back were all placed wrong for stability, and if he didn't have his thumbs neatly tucked within his fists, half the men probably did. For the rest, the trainees proved able to sit and stand neatly enough, and some even displayed trigger discipline, which is not the same as being able to do anything more warlike.


Posted by:trailing wife

#6  "We are the Junior Varsity, we have to try harder".
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2015-12-10 14:49  

#5  Let's do make an exception for actually, you know, SKIING. Which there isn't much of in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2015-12-10 14:37  

#4  The wearing of a mask should result in sudden death, and no, objections that "I'm not a Terrorist" should be ignored as lies.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2015-12-10 12:41  

#3  Skidmark, thank you.

Shipman, you are a delightful silly. I was sparring with Mr. Wife -- what would he have taught me?
Posted by: trailing wife   2015-12-10 11:20  

#2  TW srsly, you don't keep keep in your 5th claw do you?
Posted by: Shipman   2015-12-10 08:41  

#1  Nice assessment w/thumbs, bent wrists, et. al.
This is not only a unarmed CQC exercise, they are also training vest wearing range-of-motion.

The masks are hot yes, but they also conceal one's features not just from the cameras but also the training cohort. It may be intended that these people, the 'vesters' not recognize each other. Though in the final RPG photo, body language would suggest some do.
Posted by: Skidmark   2015-12-10 01:06  

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