US left $7B in weapons, equipment behind

More than $7 billion worth of US-provided military equipment was in the possession of the Western-backed Afghan government when it collapsed last year — and much of it fell into the hands of the Taliban after the US withdrawal, the Defense Department’s inspector general said in a report released Tuesday.

The watchdog noted that the lost materiel included $923.3 million worth of military aircraft, “some of which were demilitarized and rendered inoperable during the evacuation,” and $294.6 million in aircraft munitions.

The bulk of the outlay, the report added, was in tactical ground vehicles such as Humvees and mine-resistant MRAPs — about $4.12 billion of which was in the Afghan army’s inventory when the Taliban swept into Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021.

The IG’s office added that the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, which had provided the figures, had claimed that “the Afghan forces were heavily reliant on US contractor support to maintain both their aircraft and ground vehicle fleets, and without this continued support, the long-term operability of these assets would be limited.”

The report also said that 316,260 small arms — including rifles, sniper rifles, pistols, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and howitzers — worth more than $511.8 million were under the care of the Afghan military at the time of its collapse, but the condition of those weapons was unknown.

The report also stated that the US military had “removed nearly all major equipment” during the pullout, except for some tactical vehicles transferred to the Afghan Ministry of Defense at the beginning of last year, as well as other obsolete vehicles that were destroyed.

The watchdog added that “small quantities” of equipment that could not be removed from Kabul’s airport before the US completed its withdrawal Aug. 30 were also destroyed or rendered unusable.

Between 2005 and 2021, the Defense Department spent around $84 billion in security assistance to Afghan forces, with $18.6 billion going to buying weapons for the army, air force national police and special forces.

Over those 16 years, the watchdog found, the US spent $612 million on 427,300 weapons “including 258,300 rifles, 6,300 sniper rifles, 64,300 pistols, 56,155 machine guns, 31,000 rocket propelled grenade launchers, and 224 howitzers.”