Background:
Badri 313 Batallion is a Taliban elite unit, which closely associated with the Haqqani network which is part of the Taliban. It is a commando and SOF unit equipped with US gear and weapons. The elite Badri 313 special unit, however, makes Taliban soldiers look similar to U.S. soldiers, wearing tactical helmets — some with night-vision goggles — as well as camouflage, combat boots, and body armor while carrying M4 carbine assault rifles and driving around in armored Humvees.

Much of “Badri Strike” is devoted to glorifying the team of jihadists responsible for the Nov. 2018 attack on a G4S compound in Kabul. G4S is a British security and intelligence firm. “Badri Strike” documents the meticulous planning and training that went into the complicated suicide operation. A team of Badri 313 commandos received elite training in small arms beforehand. They infiltrated the compound after one of their comrades detonated a large vehicle bomb outside. (20210822)

After Kabul was captured by the Taliban in 2021, the Badri 313 Battalion was reportedly to deployed to secure the Arg Palace and other important sites in the city. By the following day, the unit provided "security" at the Kabul Airport.(20210827)
 

Taliban members and supporters often use Badri 313 interchangeably with other terms to identify the group’s “Special Forces.” The infamous “Red Unit” or “Blood Unit” is also among the organization’s commandos. The Taliban used these elite formations as shock troops in its conquest of Afghanistan. The name Badri 313 is a tribute to the Battle of Badr, in which the Prophet Muhammad reportedly led 313 men to victory.

The Haqqani Network has promoted its special forces units as far back as Nov. 2011, when it carried out an attack on the Continental Hotel in Kabul. The Haqqani’s video, titled “The Army of Badr 1,” featured “hot and attractive shots of the training, wills, and the operations of the mujahideen who participated in this martyrdom-seeking operation.” Manba al Jihad, the propaganda arm of the Haqqani Network, produced the video.

In 2015, the Taliban released another “Army of Badr” video from its Salahadin Ayyubi camp. That footage also celebrated the commandos who executed a complex suicide assault on the Afghan National Directorate of Security’s headquarters in Ghazni in Sept. 2014.

One of Manba al Jihad’s most detailed videos of the Taliban’s special forces was released in June 2020, just three months after the Trump administration agreed to a withdrawal deal with the Taliban. Sirajuddin Haqqani gave a recorded speech lauding graduates from its Al Fateh Military camp. The Al Fateh camp is a known training location for the Taliban’s special forces. In the video, titled “Victorious Forces ,” both Siraj and Mullah Yacub, the son of Mullah Omar, praised the fighters, their commitment and military prowess, while emphasizing their importance to the Taliban’s jihad. Both Siraj and Yacub are deputy emirs in the Taliban’s hierarchy. Two of the units featured in the June 2020 video showed the Taliban fighters wearing the distinct red headbands of the “Blood Unit.”

In early April 2021, just weeks before the Taliban launched its blitz to seize the country, the Taliban released scores of images. The photos featured “[h]undreds of Mujahidin [holy warriors] and martyrdom seekers” who “have graduated from Khalid bin Waleed, Al-Fateh and Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddique Military Camps of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.” The images showed well-armed and equipped Taliban fighters from its special forces in various stages of training.

Al Qaeda previously operated a unit in Afghanistan and Pakistan known as Brigade 313. This unit, which was part of al Qaeda’s Lashkar Zil or Shadow Army, was led by Ilyas Kashmiri, the famed Pakistani jihadist and al Qaeda military commander.
The U.S. killed Kashmiri in a drone strike in South Waziristan in the spring of 2011. The 313 Brigade was made up of elements of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, as well as allied jihadist groups such as Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Jundallah and others. It formed the nucleus of what became Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. Kashmiri had significant ties to the Haqqani Network. Before his death, he operated a training camp in Miramshah, North Waziristan, the Haqqani Network’s base of operations in Pakistan.