Likely billions of dollars of American weapons and vehicles are now in the hands of the Taliban extremist group after the collapse of the Afghan government and army, with numerous videos and photos surfacing online showing Taliban members seizing the equipment.
Photos have circulated of Taliban members holding American M-4 carbines and M-16 rifles rather than AK-47s or AKMs. Other images and videos showed the Taliban surrounding U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft.
On Wednesday, several GOP senators demanded the Department of Defense (DOD) provide full accounting over the weapons and equipment that were captured by the Taliban, considered by several agencies as a terrorist organization.
“As we watched the images coming out of Afghanistan as the Taliban retook the country, we were horrified to see U.S. equipment—including UH-60 Black Hawks—in the hands of the Taliban,” Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and two dozen other senators wrote to Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin this week.
“It is unconscionable that high-tech military equipment paid for by U.S. taxpayers has fallen into the hands of the Taliban and their terrorist allies,” the Republicans added. “Securing U.S. assets should have been among the top priorities for the U.S. Department of Defense prior to announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
Some experts said that the Taliban capture of U.S. hardware has more of a psychological impact—rather than a practical impact.
“When an armed group gets their hands on American-made weaponry, it’s sort of a status symbol. It’s a psychological win,” said Elias Yousif, deputy director of the Center for International Policy’s Security Assistance Monitor, according to The Hill.
Yousif said the development is problematic for a number of reasons.
“Clearly, this is an indictment of the U.S. security cooperation enterprise broadly,” he added. “It really should raise a lot of concerns about what is the wider enterprise that is going on every single day, whether that’s in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia.”
The Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, established by Congress in 2008, has said that about $83 billion was spent on developing and sustaining the Afghan police and army over two decades. Between 2003 and 2016, the United States transferred nearly 600,000 weapons, 76,000 vehicles, 163,000 communication devices, 208 aircraft, and surveillance and reconnaissance equipment to the Afghan forces, said a 2017 Government Accountability Office report.
Between 2017 and 2019, the United States provided Afghan army forces with 4,702 Humvees, 2,520 bombs, 1,394 grenade launchers, 20,040 hand grenades, and 7,035 machine guns, said the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
Yousif told The Hill that it’s likely the Taliban would be able to use advanced aircraft or weaponry but stressed they won’t be able to keep the aircraft in the air for long.
“They may be able to manage a flight or two or to operate them in some really limited capacity in the short term, but without long-term sustainment, maintenance, servicing, that sort of thing, it wouldn’t turn into a robust or useful military capability,” he said. “It took the Afghans and the United States a long time to develop an indigenous air capability, and even then, they were reliant on the United States to keep those planes in the sky.”
Small arms like M-16s, he said, are of more concern.
“They are easy to maintain, easy to learn how to use, easy to transport,” Yousif told the outlet. “The concern for all small arms is that they are durable goods and they can be transferred, sold. We’ve seen this before where a conflict ends and the arms that stay there make their way to all parts of the world.”
When pressed for comment, White House officials said that it’s not clear how many weapons or vehicles were seized.
“We don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday. “And obviously, we don’t have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport.”
And Sullivan made reference to the Black Hawk helicopters that were taken, blaming the Afghan army for not defending themselves.
“Those Black Hawks were not given to the Taliban,” he said. “They were given to the Afghan National Security Forces to be able to defend themselves at the specific request of [Afghan] President [Ashraf] Ghani, who came to the Oval Office and asked for additional air capability, among other things.”
By the time the DoD gets around to responding to this letter from Congress, this disaster will be over one way or another. Hopefully without the massive loss of life by Americans in the process.
Congress has literally written dozens of these meaningless letters to this administration requesting one thing or another and received little to no response back each time. Many of these Senators are the same ones that were part of the so-called bi-partisan Infrastructure deal that was more progressive social engineering programs than actual hard infrastructure. So I’m not holding my breath expecting any immediate response to yet another useless letter or that Congress will play a meaningful role, other that generating some PR photo ops for the Senators, in resolving this situation. Now is the time for decisive and competent action, not political theater.
Lest we forget the $40 million a month that Ghani rec’d from the Obama administration for years…
Obama Sin Laden was killed in 2011 I believe…It was time to get out of Dodge, right then & there, mission accomplished, but no, the US military complex had different plans under both Bush & Obama & once again, when Trump entered the scene in 2016, everything changed with respect to the DOD & being the police force of the entire world…
What America is stuck with, with respect to all the equipment, air craft, Humvees & weapons left behind by our military under the express guidance of the US Commander in Chief with respect to Afghanistan, i.e. JRB is a so-called potus that is totally ” clueless ” on why what has occurred inside Afghanistan ever happened!
A couple days back, Josh Hawley stated it perfectly, The Biden administration along with his entire Obama cabinet needs to step down immediately as this by default would take care of Camel toes in that process…America has LOST her strong leadership, every American, regardless of their political persuasion can now see this. Does anyone miss Donald J. Trump yet? Anyone that answers no to such an obvious question, makes them a bonified idiot…
Remember the FALSE FLAGS we were warned about & we should not lose our focus on the southern border crisis & lastly & most importantly, the ” forensic audits, ” as the AZ numbers should have been out by now & when they do come out, AZ will be the 1st state to DECERTIFY the fraudulent 2020 US Presidential Election… Now the snowball gets rolling, hence all the ” distractions ” currently taking place…
God Bless America,
Bill on the Hill… :~)
I made a similar comment earlier that both PaulE and Bill on the Hill have stated below but I guess the AMAC censors did not approve its content. Maybe I went a little overboard, OOPS !
How do you respond to stupidity and gross incompetence? Every Democrat has Afghan blood on their hands as Biden didn’t get in the White House by himself.
Why can’t there be an attack to destroy as much of the u.s. equipment as possible as soon as the airlift is finished? Let them have the scraps of what is left of what biden should have removed in the first place.
I do NOT understand why, if we knew we were pulling out, our military equipment was NOT sent home. Also, the Embassy was left wide open with NO confidential information removed. Who, in reality would have don’t such a heinous act that leaves Names, Addresses, Phone numbers, total personal info available for the Taliban to use as THEY choose. This is the worst abomination I have EVER seen in my 81 years. Previous fubars have NOTHING on this. After watching Biden’s Press Conference I am MORE concerned then ever for ‘those left behind’ and that includes American Citizens, contractors and our allies. China & Russia are now working together to ‘protect’ Central Asia. And around the world where we have troops stationed, what will happen to their credibility? Our country has been destroyed by the actions of this administration and it will be YEARS before there is EVER any trust built, if ever. God Bless America and God Bless the women, children & good citizens of Afghanistan.
Batten down the hatches, America. This is just the beginning of our new Third World nation.
Those in ‘control’, are not. Those who are not, are powerless. We have allowed our government to squeeze the life out of our country rather than serving the people. Evil has picked away at our country for decades while our people have turned an apathetic ear, shrugged shoulders and left things to let someone else ‘take care of it’.
Better check the destination on your ticket to eternity. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
Now Taliban can be a true Terror Army like Germans in WW2
Have armor, air, & arms.
Why are y’all crytng about a few million dollars worth of equipment. ?? Tye taxpayers can anti up more. . No problem. Just look at the Trillion Dollar bill just passed. The Dems will wring us out like wash rags.
This is a shameful disaster. But I am not surprised Biden is a narcissistic Idiot, always Stupid
nothing between his ears but air. Shame Shame on the USA. No country should ever trust them as long as Biden is in office. Also he definitely has severe Dementia. Are you people proud to be Americans to abandon all this innocent people. This is not what decent people do.
Nothing but FAILURE!
Sums up joebama,useless harris,pelosi,schummer and EVERY anti American corrupt Democrat!
Are the democrats such weak following lemmings that they can’t or are scared to EXPOSE and CALL OUT these LOSERS!
It should tell every voter NOT to elect these inept, lying politicians!
Funny I don’t hear any democrats saying how good these people are now????
You see even they don’t believe in these failures.
Smug, full-of-himself milley has proved that a&& kissing got him to the top, not knowledge or experience of military requirements. He’s a disgrace, and has helped shame us in the eyes of the world.
This was all intentional under the Biden/Obama admin.
If our guys were smart the equipment is booby-trapped. The embassy should have been to be detonated by a high flying aircraft.
I’m terrified of what videos are yet to come.
If the Afghan Force was not trained to care for and do maintenance on the Aircraft left behind, to prevent them from being used, what purpose would they serve? Leaving behind an armory for incapable Soldiers is pathetic. All these years our Forces were the Leaders and the Afghans the followers. Evidently, they were not really trained to be a stand alone fighting force, they were just told what to do.
Who was going to keep the Aircraft in the air for protection.
Who told Joe Biden to leave everything and all civilians behind? Our Military knew the Afghan Military could not effectively defend itself one the Leadership had gone.
Leaving behind all the Americans and our allies who would be killed if they were identified is a disgrace. They should have been flown out every day BEFORE our Military was flown out along with our equipment.
Such a dumbass Administration we now have!!
Don’t forget, Biden just gave China all the lithium in Afghanistan.
Trillions in untapped minerals.
DOD audit my a$$ how about a complete forensic audit of the twenty twenty election!
Democrats gave military weaponry to terrorists. Democrats want to take my weapons from me. We are at war!
Nicely said. People do not know or understand the constitution. I asked my neighbors daughter who just graduated how much time was spent on learning about the Constitution, she replied maybe 2 weeks. That’s 10 school days, not enough time for kids to really learn about
If you cannot take them, then you blow them up and render them useless to our enemies and make no mistake, the Taliban is our enemy. I am concerned as to how many of these will infiltrate the Afghans coming to America.
Talk is cheap one of our great President Trumps Trump cards. I dont know about you guys but after that election l knew war had begun and ever since l have been doing what l can but also holding true to our spirit. Almighty god is at work and as long as we stay true to ourselves our beliefs we will prevail. Failure to do so means failure of our belief
When I was in the Army, we were told that we were financially responsible for every item that was issued to us. Does this make a Kevlar helmet more valuable than a Blackhawk helicopter?
Way to go Joe! Just build up the Taliban military any way you can! Knock-off the phony compassion and ACT like a LEADER. Take back what is ours and set the Afghan people free from these terrorists! Oh, that’s right… anything Trump accomplished in the Middle East is fair game for cancellation on your part! You won(technically)! Now BE A LEADER and LEAD!
Merry Christmas Taliban, you are now the most well equipped terrorist organization on the planet. After this gift, they surely wouldn’t stay our enemy. Would they?
How come we keep hearing reports that our Social Security and Medicare are due to run out of money, yet our Federal Government allows this kind of waste of money without any accountability?
Oh, that’s right, we need to “build back better”. the Taliban.
The American government and pentagon are so stupid , our equipment and guns should Never have been give to these evil people in the first place !
Russia is in with the Taliban so guess who will have all our equipment ! And don’t blame Tramp , he never would of let this mess of ever happened !
Seems to me that Joe is providing material support to the enemy…
With DemocRats in control of upper level government, the Nation is about as close as it can get to a version of Communism without outright bloody revolution to get a Constitutional Democracy back in place..
The sidin’ with the Taliban is beginning to widen political chidin’ against White House residin’ Joe Hidin’ Biden. He is slidin’ in the polls with a lot of DemocRats. I sense a gathering panic in Commie DemocRats thinking as Biden has his approval numbers slidin’ down. Biden is a tragic joke that isn’t funny on our Nation!!!
No new spending!!!! Take the money from the fool’s wish list passed for 4 T$Dems have an excess of fool spending buried in that bill, take it out of their budget demands. Their demented leadership lost our equipment; YOU BROKE IT, U BOUGHT IT!
Most people don’t seem to realize that it is too late to fix the Federal government. The lunacy is pervasive and ingrained. The saddest part of all of this is the reality that the military is no longer loyal to the Constitution. They are loyal to the Globalist elites who are nothing less than outright criminals.
Is Biden a dumbass or what?!!!!!!! He and his family are certainly getting some sort of kickback as they do not operate without some sort of criminal activities. Also he could care less about all of the Afghanistan’s that are going to die or become sex slaves. I hope all of those that voted for that decrepit old man are super happy now and how about the price of gas, utilities, food, housing and everything that has become very inflated since he became president and this is without any of his tax increases he has in the hopper.
Should have bombed it all or blown it up. No time for that? We still have drones and military aircraft that WE fly. The problem was, our illustrious “president” actually believed the Taliban. So sorry!
Send the bill to Joe Biden and the Democrats so they can pay the American Taxpayer back
Army generals should be court martialed. Prison.
The Marine Lt. COL, CALLING FOR ACCOUNTABITY, IS RIGHT!