"Terrifying" Numbers of Spoils US Left Behind in Afghanistan
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The vast amount of military gear and equipment the US troops left behind in Afghanistan revealed.
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A US soldier guarding the chopper transporting ex-US Defense Secretary James Mattis in Kabul in 2017
The Head of Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC), Dmitry Shugaev, said that the US forces that withdrew from Afghanistan left behind close to $85 billion worth of weapons, a "terrifying" figure according to him.
Shugaev told Russian media that US forces left 22,000 armored vehicles, 358,000 automatic rifles, 176 artilleries, 8,000 transport trucks, a large number of transport planes, and more than 100 helicopters in Afghanistan, noting that whoever should seize what the US withdrawal left in Afghanistan will become armed to the teeth.
The FSMTC Head also revealed that the US had a contract with Russia in 2011, whereby Russia was to supply the US with Mi-17V-5 helicopters. However, these helicopters are now in the hands of the Taliban, he implied.
The blowback at home
The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said on Thursday in a House Armed Forced Committee hearing that "it is clear, it is obvious to all of us, that the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted, with the Taliban in power in Kabul."
Milley also added that "the war was a strategic failure... in the sense of we accomplished our strategic task of protecting America against Al-Qaeda, but certainly the end state is a whole lot different than what we wanted."
In another instance, during a Senate session, Milley declared that the Taliban was and still is a terrorist organization, noting that they [the Taliban] have not severed their ties with al-Qaeda.
The US Department of Defense announced in late August 2021 an end to its war in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of US forces. The Taliban announced the formation of Afghanistan's first government since the Movement took power.
