Talk:Afghan jihadist camp

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 January 2019 and 21 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MetalliKathryn.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ksmith1717.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:30, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

change name?

There are now various reasons to believe the accounts of the various Guantanamo captives that the Khalden training camp was not an al Qaeda camp. So, I think that "al Qaeda training camp" should redirect to "Afghan training camp", not vice versa. If no one objects I am going to request a move.

Cheers! — Geo Swan 03:37, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• Makes sense to me. There's been no opposition so I went ahead and did the move. I also think that the majority of the camps in the template are little more than "minor" camps and do not need their own articles - most of them have little, if any, information beyond "It is/was a training camp in Afghanistan". Unless there is some objection I will merge the minor camp articles into a list on this article. Arkyan • ^(talk) 16:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Origins

'Al Qaeda' (literally 'The Base') wasn't the name of an organisation at all. Al Qaeda actually referred to any number of safe havens in Afghanistan where prospective fighters would receive basic training. To quote Osama bin Laden directly: "The name 'al-Qaeda' was established a long time ago by mere chance. The late Abu Ebeida El-Banashiri established the training camps for our mujahedeen against Russia's terrorism. We used to call the training camp al-Qaeda. The name stayed." [1] Shouldn't the page reflect this ? smb 20:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

revert -- see talk

I am reverting the wikilink in the middle of the article title.

The convention is that the first sentence of an article is supposed to contain the article's title. It is supposed to be in bold, and without wikilinks.

If someone wants to wikilink training camp in this article they should do so elsewhere.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 02:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Only in Afghanistan?

I notice terrorist training camp redirects here. Are there no terrorist training camps outside Afghanistan? What about the School of the America?[2] Also, there are terrorist training camps in Iraq.[3] I'm going to change that redirect to a standalone article. Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 13:55, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

explanation

I changed the lead paragraph so it only asserted what could be backed up by the reference. Geo Swan (talk) 09:10, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I think redirection has advantages over piped links. When redirection is used the "what links here" button shows the different names used. This can be useful. Piped links obfuscate the actual name as it appears in the article.

I removed Category:Al Qaeda -- it is innappropriate because only a small minority of the camps were al Qaeda camps. Geo Swan (talk) 09:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

uncollapsing templates as per [4]

Another contributor has over-ridden the default state on navigation templates on something like one hundred articles, without explanation. This article is one where they over-rode the default state.

Because I was not an expert on the navigation templates I asked for input at Wikipedia talk:Navigation templates#When should navigation templates be collapsed? I believe the consensus there was that there were limited circumstances where the default state for a nvigation template should be over-ridden. However, those instances should be explained on the article's talk page -- something the contributor in question did not choose to do.

After I restored {{TrainingCamp}} to its default state that other contributor reverted to the collapsed state, with the edit summary:

"very long template that is also POV and that is better collapsed to not overwhelm the reader and to comply with WP:NPOV"

In the limited number of instances where the contributor in question has explained why they collapsed template they asserted all the templates they collapsed violated NPOV. I have said there, and I will repeat here, that:

1. If a contributor is concerned that a template itself lapses from compliance with a policy that concern should first be shared on the template's talk page. Collapsing instances of the template is not the correct way to address a genuine concern of NPOV.
2. If a contributor is concerned that a valid template is being applied to an article where it is inappropriate, and thus lapses from NPOV, they should be able to explain why they think its use is inappropriate. If they can make convincing arguments its use is really inappropriate they template should not be used at all, on that article. Collapsing that instance of the template is not the correct way to address a genuine concern of NPOV.

Candidly Geo Swan (talk) 03:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

rough work

This document lists a dozen major camps, and 27 other camps that are, presumably, not major.

• Joseph Felter, Jarret Brachman (2007-07-25). "CTC Report: An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries" (PDF). Combating Terrorism Center. mirror

Major

1. Al Farouq training camp
2. Al Ghuraba training camp
3. Al Jihad training camp
4. Al-Saddiq training camp
5. Durunta training camp
6. Jihadwal training camp
7. Khabab training camp
8. Khalden training camp
9. Libyan training camp / Torkham training camp
10. Malek Center
11. Malik training camp
12. Saman Khaela training camp
13. Tarnak farms training camp

Minor

1. Syed Ismail Shaheed Camp
2. Camp run by the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan near Dushanbe, Tajikistan
3. The Khalid Center near Baghram, Afghanistan
4. The Dimaj Institute
5. The Mullah Omar Compound
6. Camp run by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan near Lajard, Tajikistan
7. Khoja Khar in Afghanistan
8. The Mansehra Jihad military training camp
9. The Taliban Center near Khwajajaghar, Afghanistan
10. Camp Vietnam in the Philippines
11. Moasqr Kari Bilal Camp
12. An al-Qa`ida sponsored camp two hours north of Northwest Jalabat, Afghanistan
13. Abu Obeida training camp, Jalalabad, Afghanistan
14. Uighur camp in the Tora Bora mountains, Afghanistan
15. Lashkar-E-Tayyiba camps in Afghanistan
16. Camp outside of Konduz, Afghanistan
17. Pakistani Center #5 in Pakistan
18. Taliban Office of Intelligence, Division 2 in Mazar-e-Shariff, Afghanistan
19. Zubair Center near Tora Bora, Afghanistan
20. Taliban training camp, “Post” near Imam Saheb, Afghanistan
21. Terrorist training camp in Georgia
22. Qulio Urdo Taliban training camp
23. Dara Sufe
24. Mousauwal Compound
25. Gund Talimi Military School; Zakar Khel Village, Pakistan; Shamshato Refugee Camp, Pakistan
26. Shaker-Dari, Afghanistan; Pul Sayad, Afghanistan
27. Quralemsha, Pakistan

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Geo Swan (talk • contribs) 03:01, 24 May 2010

Could you please provide the reference. Thank you. IQinn (talk) 12:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

merge

On March 29, 2010, I drafted a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism/Guantanamo/What to do with Afghan training camps?.

In that proposal I wrote: "I think the camps for which the only sources are OARDEC allegation memos, and those allegation memos merely say a few captives attended the camp, but don't provide any other details, should be amalgamated."

After drafting that proposal another contributor initiated separate {{afd}}s against most of the articles on the training camps for which the only references were OARDEC allegation memos.

One of those {{afd}} was for the Al Fand training camp. Or perhaps I should say several of those {{afd}}, as a single contributor kept it continuously at {{afd}}, with consecutive nominations, from May 23rd, 2010 to July 13th, 2010.

After its last closure I placed a {{mergeto}} on the article on the Al Fand training camp, suggesting we discuss merging it with this article.

Merging the article on the Al Fand training camp, and other articles on other training camps, for which we lack robust WP:RS, to this article is one possibility. Alternatively, we could consider merging them to an article with some overlaps with this one.

Merge less well referenced articles to Afghan training camp... or to a new article...

The Felter study listed 38 camps by name. The Felter study does not list all the camps named in OARDEC allegation memos. It doesn't even list all the camps named in the CSRT allegation memos, just the first 516 memos to be published. So far 572 CSRT allegation memos have been published. In addition the allegation memos published from the annual Administrative Review Board hearings were more detailed. Over one thousand ARB memos have been published, some of which list previously unnamed camps.

An alternate target for the merge could be named something like: Training facilities allegedly attended by Guantanamo captives.

• Not all the camps were in Afghanistan. Some seemed to be in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The FATA are Pashtun territory, so it is not that much of a stretch to list them in the article on Afghan training camps. But other camps were near disputed Kashmir, near the Indian border. Still other camps were alleged to be Chechnya, Bosnia, the Phillipines and Indonesia.
• Not all of the camps were fly-by-night jihadist camps. A few of the captives had, listed as allegations that justified their continued detention, attendance at training camps back in their home countries, in their youths, when they were undergoing compulsory military service. One guy had listed what sounded not like a military training camp, but a mundane summer camp, for kids, that included a rifle range.
• Some camps seem to have been official Taliban camps, not camps run by al Qaeda, or the Hezbi Islami Gulbuddin, or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. And I wonder whether there are grounds to treat the official Taliban camps differently. Geo Swan (talk) 13:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
• Joseph Felter, Jarret Brachman (2007-07-25). "CTC Report: An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries". Combating Terrorism Center. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-08-30.

It has always been my position that the OARDEC allegation memos are themselves secondary sources, because the authors of those memos were charged with the responsibility to go through the reports from half a dozen or more other agencies.

• It was their responsibility to detect duplicative material, and strip them out.
• It was their responsibility to detect contradictions, and reconcile them, or assess which version was the most credible, or, at least, make clear there were contradictions.
• it was their responsibility to assess whether material in the reports they reviewed was no longer credible, and had been superceded by newer information.

I believe that by all reasonable definitions of the distinction between a primary source, and a secondary source, the responsibilities on the authors of the OARDEC memos clearly make them secondary sources. So camps that are named in an OARDEC memo, but aren't named in a press report, or a scholarly article, like the Felter articles, are, nevertheless, named in an WP:RS.

Therefore I think it would be appropriate to list all the alleged training facilities listed in the OARDEC memos, without regard to whether they were also listed in the Felter memo, or any other non-OARDEC source. If there is no WP:RS that describes them as an "al Qaeda camp", we should not describe the camp as an al Qaeda camp. Similarly we need to be careful not to list them as a "militant" camp, or a "military" camp, or a "terrorist" camp, if the WP:RS don't say that. However, I believe it is not original research to characterize these as camps allegedly attended by Guantanamo captives, because that is exactly what the WP:RS say. I do not believe it would be original research to say that alleged attendance at one of these camps was offered as a justification, in part, for continued detention in Guantanamo. Geo Swan (talk) 13:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

As a courtesy to other contributors could we please discuss controversial edits on the talk page, not in the edit summaries?

As a courtesy to other contributors could we please discuss controversial edits on the talk page, not in the edit summaries?

In this edit another contributor has over-riddent the default state of a navigation template, for the second time, offering the following edit summary for their justification: " very long template that is also POV and that is better collapsed to not overwhelm the reader and to comply with WP:NPOV".

I have requested this wikipedian, literally dozens of times, to not explain controversial edits solely in their edit summaries. I have explained that this is a provocative practice, one likely to trigger edit wars.

I have also explained how puzzled I am with their claim that collapsing a template is the correct way to address a perception that a template lapses from WP:NPOV. I have suggested that if any of us feel we can explain how we think a template lapses from a policy, like WP:NPOV, we should raise that concern, so that the template is fixed. I have suggested they raise their concerns at the template's talk page.

Please see the discussions on Talk:Aafia Siddiqui and Wikipedia talk:Navigation templates. One disturbing aspect of the collapsing contributor's statements there is that they seemed to be saying they did not recognize the clear consensus as to when templates should be collapsed. I assumed they were disgruntled, and that they would not infact flout the clear consensus of the preceding discussions. However this collapse is about a week after those discussions.

I am going to wait a reasonable period of time, to see if the collapsing contributor can offer a substantive, meaningful, policy-based explanation. If they can't I am going to remove the state=collapsed. Geo Swan (talk) 21:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Parked resources

Here are some sources to use to revamp this article:

Reuters story from Russian report to UN in March 2001. 55 bin Laden camps with 13,000 men. Moscow Times - mirror - Telegraph (shorter).

Good background description of Khost area camps, end of September 2001, but holds up very well. Guardian

Another good source for camps near Khost. Los Angeles Times

There are two Farouq / Farooq / Farouk camps. One outside Khost, mentioned above. And another outside Kandahar. This article talks about the Kandahar camp New Yorker.

David Hicks said there were three or four camps in Afghanistan called Farouk. Sydney Morning Herald

- Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 17:44, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Gitmo detainee chart

I deleted the chart taken from a 2007 report based on CSRT's of Gitmo detainees. While the report is useful for a listing of Afghan training camps, and still should be used as a citation, the chart is misleading. It conflates the two major Farouq training camps, one outside Khost and the other outside Kandahar. It is also based on 181 Gitmo detainees who are not at all representative of those who attended the camps. File for reference: [5]. - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 18:02, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

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Article Evaluation

I chose to evaluate this article "Afghan training camp.” This article is rated C-class and clearly is still in the early stages of development. When going into the talk page I noticed that there was quite a bit of editing done, whether it be taking out camps or merging some together, there was a lot of activity and conversation about the article. The article had little information to give but from what I evaluated it was unbiased and most of the information was sourced. There was however one blank source that was sill needed. Is anyone planning on adding a citation to that piece of information anytime soon? Also I think it would be helpful to readers to define exactly what resources are needed to plant a training camp. I would say that the article could have substance if edited and given more information for readers to actually consume. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MetalliKathryn (talk • contribs) 04:37, 26 February 2019 (UTC)