I’m writing a paper on terrorism for school and I need to know how much one would have had to pay to attend a terrorist training camp like the ones al-Qaeda ran in Afghanistan. I’m assuming they didn’t run those things for free, but I can’t seem to find any data on costs. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Um…I don’t think you are going to be able to find that many resources on costs. I would think that terrorists are generally sort of hush-hush on how much things are. They aren’t going to have an accounting ledger for example…
I seriously doubt whether Al Qaeda charges tuition, Icabod. They’re probably delighted to have people join up, so almost certainly everybody gets a “free ride”. The costs of the training camps are largely underwritten by various “interested parties”, whose bank accounts were all frozen last fall.
Here’s a starting point.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/04/12/gen.terror.money/index.html
Do Google and cnn.com searches under things like “terrorist bank accounts frozen”.
As far as a cost breakdown, “how much does it cost to train a terrorist these days?”, like Meatros said, that information just isn’t out there. It’s not like the U.S. Army, where they have statistics galore on the Web.
Good point Meatros. I didn’t form my question as well as I could have. I should have asked how much it costs to train someone in the camps, given that they are instructed in the use of firearms, explosives, and whatnot which must be bought from someone, as well as having food and shelter provided, however rudimentary they may be. But as you both said, that’s not the kind of info terrorist groups are going to throw around. Thanks for the help.
Anyone else think of the credit card commercial
AK47 with 5 clips: $600
3 blocks of C4:$1500
Killing the infidels with their own technology: priceless
Seriously though it would depend on the type of training you are looking for. If you are taking hostages and want to suceed you need to have infantry training among other things. On the other hand if you wanted to train them to blow up things this would be easier since explosives aren’t that hard to deal with if you don’t care about timers or safety.
The hardest things would be how to
A. avoid security dragnets
B. get the equipment that you need
C. get the information that you need
Since all of these would have to be learned from experience
and successful homicide bombers don’t come back