"VAN" (Afghanistan Bureau - 26.03.2023) :: Taliban’s Defense Ministry has confirmed that the group has repaired around 300 military vehicles left by the United States in Afghanistan.
Most of these military vehicles had been intentionally partially damaged by the American forces when they withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, Bakhtar News Agency reported.
The Taliban’s Ministry of Defense said that their technical team and engineers have also managed to repair hundreds of vehicles including 150 International Kamazes, 125 Humvees, 2 assault tanks, 4 trucks, 10 Porcliff vehicles, and 15 Humvee ambulances.
According to the US House of Representatives, after the withdrawal of the country’s military forces from Afghanistan, seven billion dollars worth of military equipment has been left behind in Afghanistan.
The fall of the US-backed government in Afghanistan gave Taliban fighters access to more than $7 billion worth of American military equipment, according to data in a report submitted to American lawmakers and confirmed by the Pentagon.
“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,” Lodewick said in a statement. “Nearly all equipment used by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan was either retrograded or destroyed prior to our withdrawal.”
With the Taliban in power, now the US is concerned that the military equipment could be used by terrorist groups or would be accessed by China or Russia.
Some US combat commanders claim that the military equipment left to the Taliban was used by Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), not American forces, and some of the equipment need high maintenance to keep them operating.
KP
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