US military vehicles fall into Taliban hands

WASHINGTON: The Taliban has captured a staggering 700 trucks and Humvees from the Afghan security forces as well as dozens of armored vehicles and artillery systems in June alone. It emerged following an investigation of imagery posted on social media concludes, foreign media reported.

Those numbers reflect that local defense forces in some districts are evaporating in the face of Taliban pressure—sometimes without a fight, due in part to the perception that the government is doomed due to the imminent US withdrawal from Afghanistan later this year.

And that in turn implies huge volumes of military equipment donated or sold to Afghanistan to help it fight the Taliban may instead continue pouring into that very group’s hands. The tally come from an open-source investigative report published at the Oryx blog by Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans.

The blog was earlier distinguished for its detailed open-source investigation on equipment losses in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. According to the blog, as of the evening of June 30, the study found evidence of 715 light vehicles falling into Taliban hands, with another 65 destroyed.

In 2018 the Afghanistan’s’ armed forces reportedly operated 26,000 vehicles including 13,000 Humvees of various marks, while Mitzer writes that a total of 25,000 Humvees were transferred to Afghanistan by 2021. During intensified fighting, the Afghan government typically lost 100 Humvees a week.

If the Taliban can source the necessary fuel, its growing vehicle inventory could improve the group’s operational mobility across Afghanistan. These vehicles may also serve as carriers for heavy support weapons like mortars, heavy machineguns and recoilless rifles.

The Taliban has also used captured Humvees to infiltrate government perimeters to mount deadly suicide bombings. Besides, alongside 13 shorter-range mortars, the Taliban notably captured seventeen 122-millimeter D-30 towed howitzers—the equivalent of an artillery battalion. The Taliban also destroyed three Mi-17 and one UH-60A transport helicopter in June.