Tarnak Farms
Former Afghan training camp
Tarnak Farms was an Afghan training camp near Kandahar, which served as a base to al-Qaeda emir Osama bin Laden and his followers from 1998 to 2001. It was also the site of the Tarnak Farm incident.
01History
In 1998, Osama bin Laden moved his followers from Nazim Jihad to Tarnak Farms following Northern Alliance threats to attack Jalalabad. Video of Tarnak Farms in 2000 made by the Central Intelligence Agency appeared to show bin Laden at the location. The administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton considered seizing bin Laden at Tarnak Farm, but the mission was never carried out due to concerns about killing innocent women and children, as well as legal disagreements within the administration.
The Tarnak Farms facility housed an al-Qaeda poison and explosive training laboratory and an advanced operational training camp. Operatives of al-Qaeda received advanced operational training at the facility, including urban assault. The September 11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah recorded their wills at Tarnak Farms.
On April 17, 2002, a friendly fire incident occurred when four Canadian soldiers of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry were killed at Tarnak Farms while conducting a live-fire training exercise. While flying an F-16, American pilot Harry Schmidt dropped a 227-kilogram laser-guided bomb on the Canadian position. The bomb killed Canadian Forces Sgt Marc Leger, Cpl Ainsworth Dyer, Pte Richard Green and Pte Nathan Lloyd Smith and wounded eight CF soldiers.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Tarnak Farms”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Working dog sniffs for explosives at Tarnak Farms, Kandahar.jpg by Army Pfc. Vincent Fusco, Public domain
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