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| Afghanistan-Pak-India |
| Former al-Qaeda training camp is now a ghost town |
| 2005-10-30 |
| The compound within the 10-foot-tall mud walls resembles a basic training-meets-OK Corral ghost town. Barbed wire is snarled around posts low to the dirt, a concrete tunnel keeps vermin out of the sun, and small ramps and stairs to nowhere stand like monoliths. This place is known as Tarnak Farms, a deserted al Qaeda training outpost just outside Kandahar Airfield that was bombed at the beginning of the global war on terror. If the site appears familiar to some, it should be. Released al Qaeda training videos featured anti-coalition militia training there. It was the third-largest al Qaeda training center in Afghanistan, next to Tora Bora in Nangrahar province and Zaewara in Paktia province. "When I got here, I did a little research and discovered that Tarnak Farms was the headquarters for al Qaeda and could possibly even be where al Qaeda got its name," said Army Sgt. 1st Class Todd Hutchings, a DuPont, Wash., native. "It means 'the base.'" |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |