Taliban forces paraded captured army tools within the metropolis of Kandahar on Wednesday.
Pictures from the occasion present Humvees, multi-purpose vans, and even a Black Hawk helicopter.
The Taliban captured an arsenal of weaponry when it defeated the Afghan military and overran Afghanistan.
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The Taliban held a army parade within the southern metropolis of Kandahar on Wednesday, displaying off American-made weapons of conflict captured when the group defeated the Afghan military and overran the nation, in keeping with a number of studies.
Taliban fighters flew their white-and-black flag atop US-made Humvees, multi-purpose vans, and armored automobiles.
Along with the army automobiles, the parade additionally featured what seem like captured police automobiles.
The group even had a captured Black Hawk helicopter adorned with its flag fly over the occasion, CNN reported.
When Taliban forces, lots of whom have been outfitted with what seems like American-made weapons and equipment, entered Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport in Kabul on Tuesday following the top of evacuation operations there and the departure of the final US forces, they discovered deserted floor automobiles and plane.
The US army insists that these belongings have been completely disabled, and movies that surfaced online recommend this was the case.
They’ll have a look at them, they will stroll round,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby advised CNN. “However they cannot fly them. They can not function them.”
Restating remarks made by Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, head of US Central Command, on Monday, he mentioned that the army made certain all of the army floor automobiles and plane that have been left on the airport have been “unusable.”
However whereas belongings left behind on the airport in Kabul could also be inoperable, there’s an arsenal of rifles, army gear, and automobiles that the Taliban seized from the Afghan military – which the US spent billions of {dollars} arming and equipping – that’s nonetheless operational, as was demonstrated on the victory parade in Kandahar.
The Biden administration has come underneath hearth for its dealing with of the fast Afghanistan pullout, together with the autumn of US-made weapons into the fingers of the Taliban, which the administration has acknowledged.
“We do not have a whole image, clearly, of the place each article of protection supplies has gone, however actually a good quantity of it has fallen into the fingers of the Taliban,” Jake Sullivan, the White Home nationwide safety advisor, mentioned only a few days after the autumn of the Afghan capital.
The administration has additionally confronted criticism for not anticipating the collapse of the Afghan military, forfeiting strategic positions like Bagram Air Base, and never appearing quick sufficient to evacuate US residents and weak Afghans.
Although the Taliban managed to seize an arsenal of weapons, not all of it will likely be operational for lengthy if the group is unable to develop the capabilities to adequately keep them.
