Al Qaeda’s Training Changes In Response To US Strikes
July 31, 2009 by national
Filed under World Report
The interrogations of two accused Westerners who say they trained and fought with al Qaeda in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region provide an inside view of the terror group’s organizational structures. Arguably, they shed more light on the state of al Qaeda than any material previously released into the public domain.
The documents reveal training programs and the protective measures the terrorist organization has taken against increasingly effective U.S. missile strikes.
Bryant Vinas a U.S. citizen who says he traveled to Pakistan in September 2007 to fight against Americans in Afghanistan — stated that between March and July 2008 he attended three al Qaeda training courses, which focused on weapons, explosives, and rocket-based or -propelled weaponry.
During these classes, attended by 10-20 recruits, Vinas was taught how to handle a large variety of weapons and explosives, some of them of military grade sophistication, according to his account. Read how al Qaeda is now operating
Vinas stated he became familiar with seeing, smelling and touching different explosives such as TNT, as well as plastic explosives such as RDX, and Semtex, C3 and C4 — the explosive U.S. authorities have stated was used in al Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Vinas also learned how to make vests for suicide bombers.
