The Taliban seized troves of American weapons and vehicles from surrendering Afghan soldiers. Now, gun dealers are doing a brisk business. In the chaos of the American military withdrawal and the Taliban takeover this summer, thousands of American-made weapons and tons of military equipment were seized by the militants as government military bases surrendered or were overrun. With the Taliban in power, more American weapons and military accessories are now being openly sold in shops by Afghan gun dealers who paid government soldiers and Taliban fighters for guns, ammunition and other matériel, according to weapons dealers in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan. In interviews, three weapons dealers in Kandahar said that dozens of Afghans have set up weapons shops in Afghanistan’s south, selling American-made pistols, rifles, grenades, binoculars and night-vision goggles. The equipment was originally provided to the Afghan security forces under a U. S. training and assistance program that cost American taxpayers more than $83 billion through two decades of war. During the insurgency, the Taliban eagerly sought out American-supplied weapons and gear. But now much of that weaponry is being sold to Afghan entrepreneurs because Taliban demand has eased with the end of combat, the gun merchants said. They say that many gun dealers have smuggled the weapons to Pakistan, where demand for American-made weapons is strong. The loss of tens of millions of dollars in American-made weapons and gear is yet another costly consequence of the failed, 20-year mission to Afghanistan. It ended in chaos and upheaval when the Taliban seized Kabul on Aug. 15 after crushing an Afghan military built, trained and funded by the United States. Over the years, the United States provided the Afghan military with a huge array of arms and vehicles, including M4 carbines, rockets, A-29 light attack aircraft, Humvees, and copious ammunition for assault rifles and machine guns, according to a recent report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. For the two previous fiscal years ending in June, the amount spent on the Afghan military totaled $2.6 billion. The Pentagon on Monday acknowledged that a large number of American-supplied arms remained in Afghanistan.“Since 2005, the U. S. military has provided the Afghan national defense and security forces with many thousands of small arms, ranging from pistols to medium machine guns,” Maj. Rob Lodewick, a Defense Department spokesman, said in a statement to The Times. After the Afghan government’s collapse in August, Major Lodewick said, “we recognize that large numbers of these weapons are probably now in Taliban hands.”In congressional testimony last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin said that more sophisticated weaponry that American troops were using in Afghanistan was removed when the last forces left in late August.
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Article Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/world/asia/us-weapons-afghanistan.html
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