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2025-12-05 Afghanistan
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Afghan watchdog concludes billions in weapons U.S. Biden left behind form ‘core' of Taliban military
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[JustTheNews] The U.S. invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks a month earlier. The U.S. presence in Afghanistan then continued under four presidents.
The inspector general responsible for scrutinizing U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan has detailed the billions of dollars wasted by the U.S. government during the 20-year war in the country and concluded that the arsenal of U.S.-provided military weaponry that was left behind now forms the “core” of the Taliban’s own military machine.
A massive number of U.S.-made and U.S.-supplied weapons and military facilities were left behind in Afghanistan as a result of President Joe Biden’s troop withdrawal announcement in April 2021, which resulted in the dissolution of the Afghan military, a chaotic U.S. evacuation, and a Taliban takeover in August 2021.
The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued its “final forensic audit report” this week more than four years after the U.S. withdrawal and evacuation from the country, concluding that “these U.S. taxpayer-funded equipment, weapons, and facilities have formed the core of the Taliban security apparatus.” SIGAR said in its final report that it will close its doors at the end of January 2026 as a result of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2025.
The report said that the Pentagon has concluded that the U.S. left behind weaponry worth at least $7.1 billion — weapons now in the hands of the Taliban — and that the U.S. government also continued to send $3.47 billion in humanitarian and development assistance to Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
The U.S. invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, in response to the September 11 terror attacks a month earlier. The U.S. presence in Afghanistan continued under four presidents. Though many inspector general reports include a response from those connected to the findings, this one did not.
Acting SIGAR Gene Aloise said in a letter attached to the new report that “despite nearly $90 billion in U.S. appropriations for security-sector assistance, Afghan security forces ultimately collapsed quickly without a sustained U.S. military presence” and that the watchdog office’s work “highlights serious systemic issues with reconstruction and paints a picture of a two-decade long effort fraught with waste.”
“Over two decades, the United States invested billions of dollars and incurred thousands of casualties in a mission that promised to bring stability and democracy to Afghanistan, yet ultimately delivered neither,” the report said. “The rapid collapse of the Afghan government in August 2021 laid bare the fragility that had been concealed by years of confident assertions of progress. The gap between ambition and reality was vast, with deteriorating conditions continually stymying objectives that proved to be unrealistic.”
SIGAR said that it found that “despite 20 years and $90 billion of U.S. support, the U.S. and Afghan governments failed to create an independent and self-sustainable Afghan National Defense and Security Forces." The report found that “the ANDSF remained reliant on the U.S. military in part because the United States designed the ANDSF as a mirror image of U.S. forces, which required a high degree of professional military sophistication and leadership” – creating “long-term ANDSF dependencies” – and “the decision to withdraw all U.S. military personnel and dramatically reduce U.S. support to the ANDSF destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and police.”
The collapse of the Afghan forces and the Taliban takeover meant billions of dollars worth of U.S.-provided weapons were now in the hands of the Talibs.
U.S. LEFT BEHIND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND FACILITIES NOW USED BY TALIBAN SECURITY FORCES
The report also laid out how the majority of the money the U.S. government spent on Afghan reconstruction went to Afghan security services. This meant $88.8 billion for security, $35.9 billion for development and governance, $16.3 billion for agency operations, and $7.1 billion for humanitarian assistance.
The report said that “Congress appropriated nearly $80.7 billion” to the Afghan Security Forces Fund (ASFF) “which comprised nearly 91 percent of all security-related reconstruction appropriations.” The ASFF was designed to provide the ANDSF with “equipment, supplies, services, training, and funding for salaries, as well as facility and infrastructure repair, renovation, and construction.”
The SIGAR report said that, from 2002 onward, the U.S. “obligated $31.2 billion on infrastructure, equipment, and transportation for the ANDSF” and that “of the $31.2 billion, the U.S. spent $19.7 billion to equip and transport the ANDSF.”
The report said this included the purchase of 96,000 ground vehicles, more than 51,000 general purpose or light tactical vehicles, nearly 24,000 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, close to 900 armored combat vehicles, more than 427,000 weapons, over 17,000 helmet-worn night vision devices, and a minimum of 162 aircraft.
SIGAR said that Pentagon records from late July 2021 – roughly two weeks before the Taliban seized Kabul – “indicated that the Afghan Air Force had 162 U.S.-provided aircraft in its inventory, of which 131 were usable.”
The report added that “the remaining $11.5 billion of the $31.2 billion spent by the U.S. was devoted to the construction of infrastructure for the ANDSF, including the construction of headquarters, training facilities, and bases or outposts around the country.”
“DoD determined that the United States left behind approximately $7.1 billion in material and equipment it had given to the ANDSF,” SIGAR stated. “Similarly, any remaining ANDSF facilities that were not destroyed, can be assumed to be under Taliban control.”
SIGAR also found that “approximately $57.6 million likely remained in Afghan government-controlled accounts when the Taliban took over in August 2021” and that “it is likely that the Taliban were able to access at least a portion of this money when they took over Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance.”
U.S. INADVERTENTLY ARMED AND EQUIPPED ITS FORMER TALIBAN ADVERSARIES
A Pentagon spokesman said in October 2021 – just a couple of months after the Taliban takeover – that “since 2005, the U.S. military has provided the Afghan national defense and security forces with many thousands of small arms, ranging from pistols to medium machine guns” and that “we recognize that large numbers of these weapons are probably now in Taliban hands.”
The Defense Department inspector general also conducted an investigation into the U.S.-provided weapons that were left behind in Afghanistan and that are now mostly in the hands of the Taliban. The watchdog argued that “the U.S.-funded equipment now under the control of the Taliban had previously been property of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.”
| And it just keeps going on, including $3.83 billion in humanitarian and development aid and cash to stabilize the economy sent since the Taliban took over — a flow that continued through the first quarter of fiscal 2025. |
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Posted by Skidmark 2025-12-05 02:20||
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