Tarnak Farms was an

Afghan training camp 300px, Terrorists who trained at camps in Afghanistan and fought in insurgencies around the world during the 1990s An Afghan jihadist camp, or an Afghan training camp, is a term used to describe a camp or facility used for militant training loca ...

near

Kandahar Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Pro ...

, which served as a base to

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...

and his followers from 1998 to 2001. It was also the site of the

Tarnak Farm incident The Tarnak Farm incident is the killing, by an American Air National Guard pilot, of four Canadian soldiers and the injury of eight others from the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group (3PPCLIBG) on the night ...

. In 1998,

moved his followers from Nazim Jihad to Tarnak Farms following

Northern Alliance The Northern Alliance ( ''Da Šumāl E'tilāf'' or ''Ettehād Šumāl''), officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( ''Jabha-ye Muttahid-e barāye Afğānistān''), was a military alliance of groups that op ...

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. Mayer, Jane, "The Dark Side", 2008. The Tarnak Farms facility housed an

al-Qaeda , image = Flag of Jihad.svg , caption = Jihadist flag, Flag used by various al-Qaeda factions , founder = Osama bin Laden{{Assassinated, Killing of Osama bin Laden , leaders = {{Plainlist, * Osama bin Lad ...

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 The aircraft hijackers in the September 11 attacks were 19 men affiliated with jihadist organization al-Qaeda. They hailed from four countries; 15 of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt ...

Mohamed Atta Mohamed Atta (1 September 196811 September 2001) was an Egyptian terrorist hijacker for al-Qaeda. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism, pan-Islamist, he was the ringleader of the September 11 attacks and served as the Aircraft hijacking, hijacker-pi ...

and

Ziad Jarrah Ziad Samir Jarrah (11 May 197511 September 2001) was a Lebanese man who was one of the four terrorist hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a rural area near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as part of the September 11 atta ...

recorded their wills at Tarnak Farms. On April 17, 2002, a friendly fire incident occurred when four

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

soldiers of the

Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI, generally referred to as the Patricias) is one of the three Regular Force infantry regiments of the Canadian Army of the Canadian Armed Forces. Formed in 1914, it is named for Princess Patrici ...

were killed at Tarnak Farms while conducting a live-fire training exercise. While flying an

F-16 The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it e ...

, American pilot Harry Schmidt dropped a 227-kilogram

laser-guided bomb A laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. First developed by the United States during the Vietnam War, laser-guided bombs quickly pro ...

on the Canadian position. The bomb killed

Canadian Forces The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF; , FAC) are the unified Military, military forces of Canada, including sea, land, and air commands referred to as the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Under the ''National Defenc ...

Sgt Marc Leger, Cpl Ainsworth Dyer, Pte Richard Green and Pte

Nathan Lloyd Smith The Tarnak Farm incident is the killing, by an American Air National Guard pilot, of four Canadian soldiers and the injury of eight others from the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group (3PPCLIBG) on the night o ...

and wounded eight CF soldiers.

References

{{Coord, 31.455, 65.824, type:city, format=dms, display=title Al-Qaeda facilities Osama bin Laden

See also

References