Taliban Releases Video of Preparation and Assault on Camp Bastion
Published at
JOHN STILLWELL/AFP/Getty Images(KABUL, Afghanistan) — The Taliban has released a video that shows the preparations and the actual attack on a British-run military base in Afghanistan that left two U.S. Marines dead and six fighter jets demolished.
While 14 insurgents died in the assault on Camp Bastion in Helmand province, the audacity of the strike caught the coalition by surprise and called into question whether the Taliban has really been weakened after nearly 11 years of war.
U.S. officials believe that the Taliban was only able to carry out the attack with the assistance of other militant groups, including al Qaeda and others based in Pakistan. All but one of the 15 fighters who took part in the assault died.
The new videos posted 10 days after the Camp Bastion strike includes both a planning session that reveals a map of the base along with men wearing U.S. Army uniforms performing drills by cutting a fence and charging through it.
Additional footage features two of the fighters involved in the operation delivering their wills. The video also alleges that the U.S. uses the holy Islamic book Quran “like it’s toilet paper.”
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio