I suppose this was bound to happen considering all the vast amounts of weapons left behind after Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal plan
U.S. arms left in Afghanistan are turning up in a different conflict
Weapons left behind by U.S. forces during the withdrawal from Afghanistan are surfacing in another conflict, further arming militants in the disputed South Asian region of Kashmir in what experts say could be just the start of the weapons’ global journey.
Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir tell NBC News that militants trying to annex the region for Pakistan are carrying M4s, M16s and other U.S.-made arms and ammunition that have rarely been seen in the 30-year conflict. A major reason, they say, is a regional flood of U.S.-funded weapons that fell into the hands of the Taliban when U.S.-led NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
Most of the weapons recovered so far, officials say, are from Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), both Pakistan-based militant groups that the U.S. designates as terrorist organizations. In a Twitter post last year, for example, police said they had seized an M4 carbine assault rifle after a gunfight that killed two militants from JeM.
Militants from both groups had been sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside or train the Taliban before the U.S. withdrawal, said Lt. Col. Emron Musavi, an Indian army spokesperson in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.
“It can be safely assumed that they have access to the weapons left behind,” he said in an email last year.
I guess the terrorism groups were given the guns as going away presents. Since the Taliban potentially has access to hundreds of thousands of military grade, fully automatic weapons, shouldn’t be any sort of problem, right? Plus all the ammunition?
While large numbers of small arms that had been transferred to Afghan forces most likely ended up in the hands of the Taliban, “it’s important to remember that nearly all weapons and equipment used by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan were either retrograded or destroyed prior to our withdrawal,” Army Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, said in a statement.
Was this during the time when the Taliban was rushing to take over the country as Biden had U.S. forces fumbling to leave the country, abandoning bases, leaving U.S. citizens and allies behind?
“From the weapons and equipment that we recovered, we realized that there was a spillover of high-tech weapons, night-vision devices and equipment, which were left by the Americans in Afghanistan [and] were now finding their way toward this side,” Maj. Gen. Ajay Chandpuria, an Indian army official, was quoted as saying by Indian media last year.
I wonder what other goodies the Taliban is handing out like party favors to other terrorist groups?
Of course they are.
And the Left doesn’t give a f****.
Why should the left care? The money has already been extorted from us peon taxpayers, the MI Complex has been paid, the deep state agencies have got their money, the weapons resold and the biden crime family has their 10% tucked safely in the Seychelles. As an added plus there are near zero radical leftists in our fighting military. Plenty in the the flag ranks but few who would die in a fight. They all went to Yale as daddy’s legacy. Now some rad leftists may die in a nuclear exchange but the big shots that count will be in Davos, Munich or other non bomb worthy locals. After all who would bomb Martha’s Vineyard, Brentwood or Aspen?
Teach you do realize that the peace treaty the Trump signed with the Taliban required him to leave the weapons behind for our Kabul puppet government?
That’s a lie. Trump’s agreement called for leaving some equipment and advisors but not $80+ billion in weapons. Stop lying.
James
The “left” told you 20 years ago not to occupy that country
Don’t you remember?
Afghanistan totally belongs to the right from the beginning
You expected the “left” to clean up your mess?
The left did no such thing but some individuals on both sides (including me) were against going into Afghanistan. The left as you call them kept voting for war materials and budgets for 20 years. Trump was the guy who wanted out.
Dear H:
No matter who said what 20 years ago, Sleepy Joe did what he did and the world suffers.
Reality is real.
Uhhh, if that was true, then we shouldn’t be seeing many of them on battlefields in India.
That the Taliban would give weapons to terrorist groups seeking to expand Muslim territory is hardly novel; that they would give them the best individual weapons unless they had a significant surplus of them starts to be problematic.
Dana,
That is exactly true. It is a minor quibble that “weapons left behind” are also “weapons transferred to the Afghan National Army” in the stupid short-sighted hope that they would use them to fight the Taliban instead of surrender to the Taliban. The US government had HUGE contracts set up to continue supporting the ANA and government of Afghanistan for several more years. The collapse was very rapid. pretty much as fast as the local could answer their phones and raise their Taliban flags in the front yard. The US destroyed lots of stuff and evaced other stuff, even aircraft. Yet the ANA still had a fully (mostly) air force that they turned over to the Taliban.
More guns, less crime!
Commenter:
So, the US transferred “large numbers of small arms” to the Afghans that ended up in the hands of the Taliban.
Are those the small arms they’re talking about in the article?
Colt Defense will just have to manufacture more of the soon to be obsolete M4s for the military. Or Sig Sauer will start selling us the XM5 (M5) rifles.