Taliban hold military parade with US-made weapons in Kabul

Taliban forces held a military parade in Kabul on Sunday using captured American-made armoured vehicles.

They have used the large stock of weapons and equipment left behind when the former Western-backed government collapsed in August to overhaul their forces.

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Defence ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khwarazmi said the parade was linked to the graduation of 250 freshly trained soldiers.

The exercise involved dozens of US-made M117 armoured security vehicles driving slowly up and down a major Kabul road with MI-17 helicopters patrolling overhead. Many soldiers carried American made-M4 assault rifles.

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Most of the weapons and equipment the Taliban forces are now using are those supplied by Washington to the American-backed government in Kabul in a bid to construct an Afghan national force capable of fighting the Taliban.

According to a report late last year by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar), the US government transferred to the Afghan government more than $28 billion worth of defence articles and services, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, night-vision devices, aircraft, and surveillance systems, from 2002 to 2017.

As the US troops departed, they destroyed more than 70 aircraft, dozens of armoured vehicles and disabled air defences before flying out of Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport following a chaotic evacuation operation.