Taliban The troops held a military parade in Kabul on Sunday, using captured American-made armored vehicles and Russian helicopters for display, showing that they are transforming from a rebel force to a regular standing army.
The Taliban have operated as insurgent fighters for 20 years, but they have used a large number of weapons and equipment left over from the collapse of the former government supported by the West in August to reorganize their forces.
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Defense Ministry spokesperson Enayatullah Khwarazmi said that the parade was related to the graduation of 250 newly trained soldiers.
The exercise involved dozens of American-made M117 armored safety vehicles traveling slowly on a major road in Kabul, with MI-17 helicopters patrolling overhead. Many soldiers carry American-made M4 assault rifles.
Most of the weapons and equipment currently used by the Taliban are provided by Washington to the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, in order to establish an Afghan national force capable of fighting the Taliban.
As Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan, these forces disappeared-allowing the Taliban to take over the main military assets.
Taliban officials have stated that the pilots, mechanics and other experts of the former Afghan National Army will be incorporated into a new force, which has also begun to wear traditional military uniforms to replace the traditional Afghan clothing usually worn by its fighters.
According to a report by the Special Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Sigar) at the end of last year, the U.S. government transferred more than 28 billion U.S. dollars worth of defense goods and services to the Afghan government, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, night vision equipment, from 2002 to 2017 Aircraft and surveillance system.
Some planes flew to neighboring Central Asian countries by fleeing the Afghan army, but the Taliban inherited other planes. It is not clear how many are in operation.
As the U.S. forces withdrew, they destroyed more than 70 aircraft, dozens of armored vehicles and paralyzed air defense systems, and then flew out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul after a chaotic evacuation operation.
— Supplementary report of the Kabul Bureau
