Arms seized as Taliban’s war trophies
The Taliban not only routed Afghanistan’s army but also seized a trove of their foe’s expensive weapons provided by the United States, the White House confirmed on Tuesday.
“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, and obviously, we don’t have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at a news conference in Washington.
As they swept across the mountainous country in the past week, the Taliban picked up an assortment of weapons that the US supplied to Afghan forces, including guns, ammunition and vaunted Black Hawk helicopters.
Depending on the model, the Black Hawks, manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft in Connecticut, cost from about $6 million to $10 million each.
“Those Black Hawks were not given to the Taliban. They were given to the Afghan national security forces to be able to defend themselves at the specific request (of) president (Ashraf ) Ghani, who came to the Oval Office and asked for additional air capability, among other things,” Sullivan said.
In a tweet on Sunday, Taliban figures were photographed standing in front of a Brazilian-made Embraer A-29 attack plane, modified by US defense contractor Sierra Nevada, and an MD-530F utility helicopter produced by MD Helicopters in Arizona.
From Humvees to aircraft
Bradley Bowman, a former Black Hawk pilot who served in Afghanistan and critic of the US pullout from the landlocked country, told Defense News: “There’s no doubt that they’ve captured hundreds of Humvees and artillery and other equipment — and aircraft”.
“This should be deeply, deeply troubling to Americans, not only because we help fund those and provide those, but because how the Taliban could benefit.”
General Mark Kelly, who leads Air Combat Command, told Defense News in an interview on Monday: “It’s understandable for people to be concerned about any capability falling into the hands of folks where we don’t know exactly how they’re going to use it, who they are going to use it against, whether that’s an M16 (rifle) or whether that’s an A-29.”
He added: “But suffice to say that the technology that’s in the A-29 is not cutting-edge technology. When you look at the airplane’s range and speed and computer power and lifting capability ... it’s not something that, frankly, concerns us.”
The Afghan air force operated 211 aircraft, with 167 planes and helicopters available as of June 30, according to a recent report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a congressional watchdog that has kept tabs on US operations in Afghanistan since 2008.