It was shortly before midnight when Major General Christopher Donahue, the last member of the US military, boarded the plane last Monday and shortly after took off in one of three Boeing C-17s into the dark sky over Kabul.
The armed forces not only left behind thousands of desperate people for whom there was no way out of an Afghanistan under the control of the Islamists. The Army and the US Air Force also had to give up a veritable arsenal of weapons and equipment. And the Taliban are not the only archenemy of the US interested in this material.
Not everything has been “demilitarized” by a long way
The day after the US withdrew, the first pictures of Taliban fighters were circulating, posing in the cockpits of helicopters, examining military aircraft and even holding entire parades with equipment they had got hold of. The new rulers in Afghanistan celebrated their triumph and at the same time mocked the West.
The Pentagon wasted no time in assuring that the material was completely useless in the hands of the enemy. The devices were all “demilitarized” before departure, as it is called in technical jargon.
But in its 20-year mission in Afghanistan, the US has transported far more equipment into the country than just a few jeeps, helicopters and planes. There is talk of around 83 billion dollars that Washington is said to have invested – with the aim of being able to leave the local armed forces to fend for themselves in the fight against the Taliban at some point. For this reason, vast amounts of material were made available to the Afghan army.
Assault provided the Taliban with an arsenal
One of the showpieces that the Afghan army once had at its disposal thanks to the USA are the Humvees. A copy of these armored all-terrain vehicles costs over $ 200,000. According to a report by the US Court of Auditors, over 22,000 Humvees went to the Afghan armed forces. There were also mine-proof vehicles, troop transports and countless military trucks.
This material and many other weapons such as machine guns and sniper rifles were largely not destroyed, but fell into the hands of the Taliban with almost no resistance during their conquest from the province to the capital. But it is not only the Islamists in Afghanistan who benefit from the equipment they have got hold of. In neighboring Iran, too, access to US war material has apparently already been obtained.
Top military technology – also for Iran?
As the “Amwaj Media” portal reports, the Afghan armed forces exodus towards Iran during the Taliban’s advance in August. The soldiers drove to the border in masses of vehicles to escape the approaching enemy troops. The recordings that are now in circulation show trucks of the Iranian army that have loaded various vehicles that were once handed over to the Afghans by the US military.
The Iranian army asserts that most of the material was returned to Afghanistan immediately. The suspicion is that at least certain vehicles and equipment were examined more closely by the archenemy.
It was already evident ten years ago that Iran is very interested in US military technology. On December 5, 2011, Iran succeeded in fetching a US Army stealth drone that had penetrated Iranian airspace and then investigating it. At least according to their own statements, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has now succeeded in recreating the high-tech drone “RQ-170 Sentinel” thanks to the conquest. (cat)