A video has appeared showing Taliban fighters carrying a Black Hawk helicopter on a jewel ride to an Afghan airport, the latest example of how insurgents flaunt their newly acquired military equipment and rub it in the face of America .
According to The Independent, the former Afghan Air Force UH-60 Black Hawk is seen rolling in an airport in Afghanistan. Still, it doesn’t seem to leave the ground on the images.
Russian television network RT and the technology and motoring outlet The Drive identified the aerodrome as Kandahar Airport in southeastern Afghanistan.
Joseph Dempsey, associate researcher for the defense and military analysis of the London thinktank of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, he also tweeted the clip and identified the aerodrome as Kandahar Airport.
The Drive noted that while the U.S.-made helicopter was not seen leaving the ground, it could at least be seen as another propaganda effort by extremists, who have seized a huge amount of weapons. billions worth of billions after the government was overthrown in August. 14.
It is still unclear how many former Afghan military planes are under Taliban control, although Reuters reported last week that some 40 fixed-wing planes and helicopters were confiscated.
Experts and observers have identified what appeared to be at least four Black Hawks under Taliban control, including two at Kandahar airfield, the site of a major U.S. air base handed over to the now-defunct Afghan government, The reported. Drive.
Earlier this week, Taliban fighters were shown showing off their new uniforms and equipment taken from U.S. special forces reserves provided to the Afghan army.
Members of the so-called Badri 313 Brigade have appeared in ISIS-style propaganda images dressed in what look like American military uniforms, abandoning their traditional turbans for the distinctive special forces helmets with spectacle frames. nocturne.
Meanwhile, a government surveillance group said the U.S. military is leaving 75,000 vehicles, 600,000 weapons and 208 planes behind in Afghanistan, according to the Daily Wire.
“We have turned the Taliban into a major U.S. arms dealer over the next decade,” said Adam Andrzejewski, general manager of Open the Books, a U.S.-based nonprofit group that studies spending. government, the newspaper reported.
“They now control 75,000 military vehicles. These are about 50,000 tactical vehicles, 20,000 Humvees, control about 1,000 mine-resistant vehicles and even about 150 armored vehicles, “he added.
Andrzejewski said the United States has spent $ 83 billion on Afghan security forces through training and equipment since 2001.
“We built them a pretty amazing war chest and now everything is in the hands of the Taliban,” he said. “We know that last month, until July, seven new helicopters were being delivered to the capital of Kabul.”
The CEO said that while his group has been able to count the teams left behind, the figures are incomplete.
“We found a federal audit detailing up to $ 200 million of drones that had disappeared,” Andrzejewski said, the Daily Wire reported. “We don’t know where there are 600,000 guns in the country.”
According to reports, the United States handed over $ 28 billion in weapons to the Afghan army between 2002 and 2017, including seven brand new helicopters delivered to Kabul just a month ago.
The war chest also included the supply of 600,000 infantry weapons, including M16 assault rifles, as well as 162,000 communication equipment and 16,000 night-vision goggles.
In just two years from 2017 to 2019, the United States donated 7,035 machine guns, 4,702 humvees, 20,040 hand grenades, 2,520 bombs and 1,394 grenade launchers, The Hill reported, citing a report from the Special Inspector General for in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan last year.
“Everything that has not been destroyed is from the Taliban now,” a U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Videos have already captured Taliban fighters triumphantly opening confiscated weapons boxes, including U.S.-made M4 rifles and M16 rifles, The Hill reported. They have also been seen with Humvees from the United States.
On Wednesday, more than two dozen Republican senators demanded a “full account” of what has been confiscated and plans to recover it.
“It is unconscious that high-tech military equipment paid for by U.S. taxpayers has fallen into the hands of the Taliban and its terrorist allies,” the 25 senators told Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.