Another Video of Afghan Jihadists

This is another video made by a courageous female western journalist named Claire Billet. She was embedded with a Taliban faction for 3 days.
While these events took place in 2007, the information contained in the video is still relevant to understand the depth of control the Taliban has over territory in Afghanistan. It is also a unique look at who the insurgents are and their tactics.

She amazingly filmed an attack on an afghan police outpost from their perspective. She also carried interviews, shared meals and traveled around with them in their zone of control.

The other peculiar thing about this report is that the leader of the band in the video, Abu Tayyeb, was also the man responsible for kidnapping New York Times journalist David Rohde for 7 months in 2008-2009. (You can read David’s full story here in case you missed it.)

There are two videos from Claire Billet - one in French, the other in English. Both have different content and are equally worth watching.

English news report, French news report (English translation of the French report).

Here’s what I could tell about the insurgents from watching these videos.

1) They have poor military training. The footage of the firing range shows they have amateurish command of their firearms. They are probably very poor marksmen.

2) The attack on the police outpost wasn’t rehearsed. They were still passing orders at only 100 meters or so from the target. They didn’t approach the outpost in any kind of formation either.

3) Yet, the orders, once given, emanated from sound tactics presumably passed down by the old timers from the 1980’s to the new generation. They positioned two firing groups then drew enemy fire with a bait. Once they knew where to shoot at they responded with all their punch . They had a reserve group in case one group was intercepted and they knew not to linger too long. The attack was successful and caused 3 deaths according to a government report in the days after.

4) The band itself is composed of a leader, Abu Tayyeb, supported by a few experienced fighters probably in their 50’s who act as a source of knowledge. Then there are the younger recruits. One of them came from Iraq and spoke no Pashto. He was in Afghanistan to fighting jihad and more specifically was waiting for a suicide mission.

5) The band controls the area they operate in through and through. They – or the greater group around them, administer justice, supervise education, are free to travel openly, and, we know this from other sources, collect duties from goods passing through their area. (This is a similar situation to the tribal areas in Pakistan. In fact, Abu Tayyeb travelled between both areas in the narration of David Rohde. This is what the Taliban mini-state consist of.)

6) They are extremely courageous. They are not afraid to die because they are very religious. They are always courteous to the young journalist and appear to abide by a code of honor in everything they do. They love each other and are clearly bound by a strong feeling of brotherhood.

7) The threat of American airpower was of little concern to them. But then again, this was 2007 when most American material and personnel was occupied in Iraq. The threat is probably much greater today, if only for the fact that the use of drone attacks is currently being stepped up tremendously. If you knew where they were, it would be easy to hit them.