A Pentagon report reveals that after the chaotic US withdrawal from the country, billions of dollars in weapons and military equipment turned over to the Afghan government were left behind in Afghanistan.
Overall, about $7 billion worth of hardware remained in the country after the Taliban took control, according to the report prepared for Congress, available to CNN.
This includes nearly $1 billion worth of aircraft that were disabled and dumped at Hamid Karzai International Airport, some 22,000 military Humvees and almost all of the communications equipment that was supplied as the conflict unfolded.
In the weeks following the US withdrawal and the collapse of Kabul, Taliban troops happily posed for photos with sophisticated night vision goggles and drove abandoned vehicles.
That means the equipment is now in the hands of the enemy the US was trying to defeat.
A new Pentagon report revealed the full extent of US arms and military equipment that were shipped to Afghan forces but were left behind when President Joe Biden ordered the withdrawal of American troops last year. The US left behind about $7 billion in equipment, it said
A Taliban fighter posed with a US-made Afghan Air Force Blackhawk helicopter at Kandahar airfield last August as weapons fell into the hands of the country’s new rulers
Taliban troops displayed their new military gear during a victory parade in Kandahar last September as they celebrated the withdrawal of US forces and their conquest of Afghanistan
Republicans have sounded the alarm for leaving deadly technology behind, and former President Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned his successor for not bringing out more of the equipment.
But the report says the Defense Department has no plans to return to Afghanistan to “salvage or destroy.”
Instead, it describes how “much of the remaining equipment” requires “specialized maintenance that DoD contractors have previously provided” to Afghan troops “in the form of technical knowledge and support.”
Nevertheless, the list of equipment left behind reads like a Taliban armaments wish list.
It includes a total of 9,524 air-to-surface munitions — including bombs, machine guns, air-to-surface missiles, missiles, air-launched cruise missiles carried by fighter jets — worth $6.54 million.
A Taliban fighter photographs a damaged MD-530 helicopter abandoned at Kabul airport by retreating troops
Taliban fighters sit on an Afghan army Humvee on August 15. Much of the equipment the US gave to Afghanistan “fell into the hands of the Taliban,” according to a US official.
The Taliban last year released propaganda footage of body armor-clad “special forces” wearing night-vision goggles, which may have come from abandoned Afghan army camps
According to the report, the US abandoned 78 planes in Kabul.
And more than 40,000 of the nearly 100,000 vehicles delivered to the Afghan armed forces remain in the country.
“The operating condition of the remaining vehicles” is “unknown,” says the report.
More than 300,000 weapons out of 427,300 shipped to Afghan security forces were left behind as Kabul’s resistance to the Taliban collapsed and troops melted away.
The report also said that “almost all” of the 42,000 night vision, surveillance, “biometric and tracking devices” had been abandoned in Afghanistan.
The Taliban have released propaganda footage of “special forces” clad in body armor and wearing night vision goggles.
The extremists also released footage last August testing a captured $6 million US-made Blackhawk helicopter by taxiing it around an airfield.
A Russian Mi-17 helicopter is pictured alongside Taliban fighters after being seized by retreating Western troops
The Taliban used weapons left behind by American troops (pictured: Taliban with US armored vehicle) to crush the last pockets of resistance against their takeover of Afghanistan
At the time of the Taliban takeover, the Afghan military had more than 150 aircraft, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released last month.
It included four C-130 transport aircraft, 23 Brazilian-made A-29 ‘Super Tucano’ turboprop ground-attack aircraft, 45 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and 50 smaller helicopters.
The Afghan Armed Forces also received more than 30 military versions of the single-engine fixed-wing Cessna aircraft.
The Taliban also displayed advanced weaponry left behind by American troops last September as they attempted to smash the last pockets of resistance to the Afghan takeover.
The rebels appeared to be outnumbered by Taliban fighters using US armored vehicles, mortar-based missiles and high-powered artillery.
Videos showed Taliban gunmen wielding US military M4 and M16 rifles and wearing night vision goggles.