WASHINGTON: About a month ago, Afghanistan's ministry of defence posted on social media photographs of seven brand new helicopters arriving in Kabul delivered by the United States.
"They'll continue to see a steady drumbeat of that kind of support, going forward," US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters a few days later at the Pentagon.
In a matter of weeks, however, the Taliban had seized most of the country, as well as any weapons and equipment left behind by fleeing Afghan forces.
Video showed the advancing insurgents inspecting long lines of vehicles and opening crates of new firearms, communications gear and even military drones.
"Everything that hasn't been destroyed is the Taliban's now," one US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
Current and former US officials say there is concern those weapons could be used to kill civilians, be seized by other militant groups such as Islamic State to attack US-interests in the region, or even potentially be handed over to adversaries including China and Russia.
President Joe Biden's administration is so concerned about the weapons that it is considering a number of options to pursue.
The officials said launching airstrikes against the larger equipment, such as helicopters, has not been ruled out, but there is concern that would antagonise the Taliban at a time the United States' main goal is evacuating people.
Another official said that while there are no definitive numbers yet, the current intelligence assessment was that the Taliban are believed to control more than 2,000 armoured vehicles, including US Humvees, and up to 40 aircraft potentially including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones.
"We have already seen Taliban fighters armed with US-made weapons they seized from the Afghan forces. This poses a significant threat to the United States and our allies," Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters in an email.
'MORE LIKE TROPHIES'
The speed with which the Taliban swept across Afghanistan is reminiscent of Islamic State militants taking weapons from US-supplied Iraqi forces who offered little resistance in 2014.
Between 2002 and 2017, the United States gave the Afghan military an estimated US$28 billion in weaponry, including guns, rockets, night-vision goggles and even small drones for intelligence gathering.
But aircraft like the Blackhawk helicopters have been the most visible sign of US military assistance, and were supposed to be the Afghan military' biggest advantage over the Taliban.
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2021-08-19 19:43:00Z
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