LONDON: Taliban have reportedly sold or smuggled hundreds of thousands of American-made weapons to terrorist organizations, according to a report by a leading British news outlet.
The weapons in question were left behind by US forces during their withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
The report cites United Nations findings, stating that around 500,000 weapons went missing after the Taliban takeover. Many of these arms have reportedly ended up in the hands of extremist groups, including those affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
The UN confirms that terrorist factions now have access to advanced military hardware once supplied to Afghan security forces by the United States.
According to sources within the UN Security Council, the Taliban admitted they could not account for at least half of the seized military equipment. An official from the council’s monitoring committee said that the fate of nearly half a million weapons remains unknown.
Following the US withdrawal, the Taliban took control of an estimated one million pieces of military hardware. Though Taliban officials deny any wrongdoing and insist that the weapons are stored securely, the UN’s 2023 report contradicts this claim.
It reveals that local Taliban commanders were reportedly authorized to retain 20% of the seized weapons, further fueling illegal arms trade in the region.
Eyewitnesses and journalists in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province report that American weapons were openly sold in markets for nearly a year after the Taliban took power. That trade has now moved underground, raising concerns about the growing black market and cross-border weapon smuggling.
The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) confirmed that a substantial cache of weaponry had been lost.
US President Donald Trump previously claimed that the equipment left behind was worth as much as 85 billion dollars.
The international community now faces mounting pressure to track and recover these weapons amid growing fears they could be used in future terror attacks across the region and beyond.