Neither ‘Retrieve’ Nor ‘Destroy’: $7 Bln of US Military Hardware Left in Afghanistan, Report Reveals

After taking over Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban* reportedly captured an arsenal of mostly US-made weapons worth tens of billions of dollars, including grenade launchers, howitzers, Humvees, assault rifles and even aircraft.

The US left more than $7 billion in weaponry behind in Afghanistan when American forces left the South Asian nation in the summer of last year, a Pentagon report has revealed.

According to the congressionally-mandated report seen by CNN, the US delivered a total of $18.6 billion in military equipment to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) from 2005 to August 2021.

Of that sum, equipment worth $7.12 billion remained in Afghanistan following the completion of the US withdrawal from the country on 30 August 2021, the document reads, adding that the Department of Defence (DoD) has no plans to return to Afghanistan to "retrieve or destroy" its military hardware.

The report adds that the weaponry includes aircraft, air-to-ground munitions, military vehicles, as well as communications equipment and other materials.

According to the document, 78 US aircraft worth $923.3 million were demilitarised and rendered inoperable before the American military pulled out of Afghanistan. The report also notes that more than 40,000 of the total 96,000 military vehicles Washington supplied to Afghan forces remained in Afghanistan at the time of the US withdrawal, including 12,000 military Humvees.

“The operational condition of the remaining [military] vehicles" in Afghanistan is “unknown”, the survey points out, also singling out “nearly all" night vision, surveillance, as well as “biometric and positioning equipment”, totalling nearly 42,000 pieces of specialised equipment that remained in the country.

The report underlines that “much of the remaining equipment" left in Afghanistan requires "specialised maintenance that DoD contractors previously provided" to Afghan forces "in the form of technical knowledge and support”.

In September 2021, countries in the region expressed concern over the fate of the arsenal of mostly US-made weapons that were reportedly seized by the Taliban in Afghanistan, with Moscow voicing hope that the arms would not be used in a potential civil war in the country. Others have warned that part of the haul may end up on the international arms market, or in the hands of terrorist groups such as Daesh** and al-Qaeda**.

The Taliban entered Kabul without a single shot in mid-August, and the last province to resist the group, Panjshir, surrendered on 6 September. As international troops withdrew from the country and foreign evacuations came to a close, the militant group announced the composition of the all-male interim cabinet, headed by Mohammad Hasan Akhund, a former foreign minister during the previous Taliban rule, who has been under UN sanctions since 2001.

* Organisation under UN sanctions for terrorist activities

**terrorist groups banned in Russia and many other countries.