When the U.S. military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan as ordered by President Joe Biden in August of last year, it left behind more than $7 billion in military equipment for the Taliban.
According to a Department of Defense report ordered by Congress, and first reported by CNN, the American military assigned $18.6 billion of equipment to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces over a 16-year period (2005 – August 2021). After the U.S. withdrawal was completed on Aug. 30, 2021, equipment valued at $7.12 billion was left behind, consisting of aircraft, air-to-ground munitions, military vehicles, weapons, communications equipment, and other materials, according to the DOD report.
As CBN News has reported, Biden’s abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan while ignoring the advice of military leaders, after a 20-year U.S.-led war against terror groups Al Qaeda and the Taliban, has received severe criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
The DOD, submitted the report last month to Congress giving a detailed account of “the disposition of United States property, equipment, and supplies provided to” Afghan forces that “were destroyed, taken out of” or “remain in Afghanistan,” CNN reported.
“The $7.12 billion figure cited in the Department’s recent report to Congress corresponds to ANDSF equipment and not U.S. military equipment used by our forces,” Army Major Rob Lodewick, a Defense Department spokesperson, said in a statement. “Nearly all equipment used by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan was either retrograded or destroyed prior to our withdrawal and is not part of the ‘$7.12 billion figure cited in the report.”
The DOD report listed other equipment, weapons, and materials left behind, and not destroyed, by American forces:
- Aircraft worth more than $923 million, demilitarized and inoperable.
- 9,524 air-to-ground ammunition. ($6.54 million)
- 40,000 military vehicles, including 12,000 Humvees
- More than 300,000 weapons. In addition, 1,537,000 rounds of “specialty munitions” and “common small arms ammunition.” ($48 million)
- All communication equipment the American military gave to Afghan forces. The list includes base-station, mobile, man-portable, and hand-held commercial and military radio systems, as well as associated transmitters and encryption devices.
- “Nearly all” 42,000 pieces of night vision, surveillance, “biometric and positioning equipment.”
- “Nearly all” explosive ordinance disposal and demining equipment, including 17,500 “pieces of explosive detection, electronic countermeasure, disposal, and personal protective equipment.”
The Defense Department said in the report it has no plans to retrieve or destroy the equipment that remains in Afghanistan, according to CNN.
Following the U.S. withdrawal last year, the DOD said a lot of the equipment that had been left behind had been either destroyed or made inoperable.
In addition, the report lists other munitions from Afghanistan that were sent to Ukraine under the presidential drawdown authority. This includes five Mi-17 helicopters which were sent to Ukraine for maintenance, 37,000 122mm howitzer rounds, 15 million rounds of Ball rifle ammunition, and over 99,000 40mm high-explosive/fragmentation grenade cartridges, and 119,000 82mm high-explosive mortar rounds.
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