BBC:
Half a million weapons obtained by the Taliban in Afghanistan have been lost, sold or smuggled to militant groups, sources have told the BBC – with the UN believing that some have fallen into the hands of al-Qaeda affiliates.
The Taliban took control of around one million weapons and pieces of military equipment – which had mostly been funded by the US – when it regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, according to a former Afghan official who spoke to the BBC anonymously.
As the Taliban advanced through Afghanistan in 2021, many Afghan soldiers surrendered or fled, abandoning their weapons and vehicles. Some equipment was simply left behind by US forces.
The cache included American-made firearms, such as M4 and M16 rifles, as well as other older weapons in Afghan possession that had been left behind from decades of conflict.
Sources have told the BBC that, at the closed-door UN Security Council’s Sanctions Committee in Doha late last year, the Taliban admitted that at least half of this equipment is now “unaccounted” for.
A person from the committee said they had verified with other sources that the whereabouts of half a million items was unknown.
In a report in February, the UN stated that al-Qaeda affiliates, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, were accessing Taliban-captured weapons or buying them on the black market.
The BBC put this to Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesperson for the Taliban government, who told the BBC it took the protection and storage of weapons very seriously.
“All light and heavy weapons are securely stored. We strongly reject claims of smuggling or loss,” he said.
