New Delhi: Riding on a victory wave replete with a hasty US withdrawal and an abject capitulation by the Afghan army, to say that the Taliban has become stronger may be an obvious understatement. The insurgent organization may soon gleefully lay its hands on the vast array of military resources left behind.
Just to help the Afghan government provide security in Afghanistan, the US had pumped in about $89 billion as of June 30, 2021. With the Ashraf Ghani-led Afghan government’s sudden fall, it would be safe to assume that a substantial chunk of those investments has fallen into the Taliban hands.
Just to give an idea, according to the US government official figures, in the three months from April to June 2021, the US handed over to the Afghan National Defense and Security forces (ANDSF) six A-29 light attack aircraft, 174 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (Humvees), about 10,000 2.75 inch high-explosive rockets, 61,000 40-mm high explosive rounds, 9,00,000 rounds of .50 calibre ammo, and 20,15,600 rounds of 7.62 mm bullets.
While a stock-taking exercise is yet to begin in the war-ravaged country because of the prevailing circumstances, it is very likely that the Taliban may have taken possession of most of those assets.
Also read: Afghanistan falls to Taliban again after twenty years
Broadly, the US-led NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan has given on a platter to the Taliban something that the largely ragtag outfit of insurgents possibly never dreamt of—an up and running air force, a professionally-trained and well-equipped military most of whom gave in to the insurgents along with their fighting equipment and expansive and state-of-the-art military bases.
Air force assets
The Afghan Air Force (AAF) operates three types of helicopters which include the 45 UH-60 Blackhawks, 50 MD-530s, and 56 Mi-17 helicopters besides its A-29 Super Tucano fighters (23 in number), C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, C-208 utility aircraft, and AC-208 fixed-wing aircraft.
In total, the AAF has an inventory of 211 air platforms of which 167 were operable as of June 30, 2021. However, a problem that may dog the Taliban in operating these platforms will be finding operators and aviators, mechanics and locating spares.
Military bases
The 11 bases and military complexes recently handed over to the ANDSF are New Antonik, Kandahar airfield, Camp Morehead, New Kabul Complex, Blockhouse, Camp Stevenson, Camp Dwyer, Camp Lincoln (Camp Marmal), Camp Arena, Bagram airfield and the Resolute Support headquarters (RSHQ) which was handed over to the Afghan government on June 6, 2021.
ANDSF
The latest figures reveal that the total number of ANDSF personnel was 300,699 — 182,071 in the defence ministry and 118,628 deployed with the interior ministry—including 6,312 female personnel. They are all trained in modern military administration, logistics and tactics either in Afghanistan or in countries abroad including India.
Also read: Taliban insurgents take over security posts across Kabul
That there was a lack of motivation on part of ANDSF to play second ally to the US-led NATO militaries was getting very obvious. It reflected in the widespread surrenders to the Taliban without a single bullet getting fired in many cases. A vastly unanalyzed and conspicuous emerging trend was the growing cases of insider attacks where ANDSF personnel turned on their own. As a result, there were at least 26 insider attacks in just three months from April to June killing at least 81 ANDSF personnel.
But whatever was possible and easily movable, the US took back. As of July 5, 2021, the US Central Command had flown out 984 C-17 transport aircraft loads from Afghanistan carrying more than 17,074 pieces of equipment with the excess equipment handed over to the ANDSF.
