Since the departure of US troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban appears to have come into possession of a huge arsenal of weapons and military equipment left behind by the US army.
Following a committee meeting, US Navy reservist Jim Bank accused the Biden administration of not having any plan on Afghanistan and said, “Taliban has 85 billion USD worth of military equipment. That includes 85 thousand vehicles, over 200 aeroplanes and helicopters. Over 600 thousand small arms and weapons. Taliban has more Black Hawk helicopters than 85 per cent of countries in the world. They have night-vision goggles, body armour, medical supplies. Taliban has biometric devices which have the fingerprints, eye scans and biographical information of Afghans who helped the US over the last 20 years.” He added that the Biden administration has no plan to get the military equipment and supplies back.
With the withdrawal, the Taliban demonstrated the military equipment that was under their control. But Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told CNN Tuesday he was not "overly concerned about these images” of Taliban fighters examining the abandoned aircraft.
"They can inspect all they want," Kirby said. "They can look at them; they can walk around -- but they can not fly them. They can not operate them."
He added that the US military had made "unusable all the gear that is at the airport -- all the aircraft, all the ground vehicles," leaving only some fire trucks and forklifts are operational.
In contrast, the Taliban held a military parade in the southern city of Kandahar on Wednesday, showing off American-made weapons of war captured when the group defeated the Afghan army and overran the country, according to multiple reports.
Taliban fighters flew their white-and-black flag atop US-made Humvees, multi-purpose trucks, and armoured vehicles. TheUH-60Black Hawks that the Pentagon Press secretary was denying to fly appeared on the air during the parade. According to unconfirmed reports, these are the platforms, vehicles and weapons that the Taliban has in possession.
Examples of vehicles | Examples of weapons | Usable fixed-wing aircraft | Usable helicopters | ||||
Light tacticalvehicles | 42,604 | Rifles | 358,530 | A-29 | 23 | Mi-17 | 32 |
Humvees | 22,174 | Pistols | 126,295 | AC-208 | 10 | UH-60 BlackHawk | 33 |
MTVs | 8,998 | Machine guns | 64,363 | C-208 | 23 | MD530 | 43 |
APC | 189 | Shotguns | 12,692 | C-130 | 3 | ||
Total key vehicles | 75,898 | Total key weapons | 599,690 | Total usable fixed-wing aircraft | 59 | Total usable helicopters | 108 |