Monitoring Desk: The Afghan Taliban interim government that is overtly hosting and equipping global terrorists such as TTP and Al-Qaeeda earned half a million dollars by selling NATO weapons left by the US forces to global terrorists, indicates BBC News.
The report indicated that weapons left by the US Army behind while leaving Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, were controlled by the Taliban, who sold or smuggled the weapons to terrorist groups.
“The cache included American-made firearms, such as M4 and M16 rifles, as well as other older weapons in Afghan possession that had been left behind from decades of conflict. Sources have told the BBC that, at the closed-door UN Security Council’s Sanctions Committee in Doha late last year, the Taliban admitted that at least half of this equipment is now “unaccounted for”, reported the BBC.
The UN staff has already claimed that al-Qaeda affiliates, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, were accessing Taliban-captured weapons or buying them on the black market.
A 2023 UN report said the Taliban allowed local commanders to retain 20% of seized US weapons, and that the black market was thriving as a result. The UN noted that the “gifting of weapons is widely practiced between local commanders and fighters to consolidate power. The black market remains a rich source of weaponry for the Taliban.
Individuals and local commanders trade new and used US weapons and equipment, mostly the weapons left by US-backed forces. A 2022 report confirmed that the volume of sales is so big that it was unable to get accurate information on how many weapons had been sold and smuggled out of Afghanistan. A report of SIGAR claimed that “shortfalls and issues with DoD’s [Department of Defense] processes for tracking equipment in Afghanistan” had existed for over a decade, and the State Department provided limited, inaccurate, and untimely information about the equipment and funds it left behind.
The Taliban has rejected claims that weapons have been smuggled or lost. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he will reclaim weapons from Afghanistan. He said that $85bn (£66bn) of advanced weaponry was left there.
“Afghanistan is one of the biggest sellers of military equipment in the world, you know why? They’re selling the equipment that we left,” Trump said during his first cabinet meeting of the new administration.
After withdrawing in 2021, the Pentagon claimed US equipment left in Afghanistan was disabled, but the Taliban have since built a capable military using US weapons and gained superiority over rival groups, such as the National Resistance Front and Islamic State Khorasan Province – the regional affiliate of the Islamic State group.
A source from the former Afghan government told the BBC that “hundreds” of unused Humvees, mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs), and Black Hawk helicopters remain in Kandahar warehouses.
