Islamabad — Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister claimed on Monday that U.S. military equipment left behind during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan has fallen into militant hands and ultimately made its way to the Pakistani Taliban.
The equipment — which includes a wide variety of items, from night vision goggles to firearms — is now “emerging as a new challenge” for Islamabad as it has enhanced the fighting capabilities of the Pakistani Taliban, Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said.
The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, have over the past months intensified attacks on Pakistan’s security forces. They are a separate militant group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban.
The Taliban overran Afghanistan in mid-August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the last weeks of their chaotic pullout from the country after 20 years of war. In the face of the Taliban sweep, the U.S.-backed and trained Afghan military crumbled.
There is no definite information on how much U.S. equipment was left behind — but the Taliban seized U.S.-supplied firepower, recovering guns, ammunition, helicopters and other modern military equipment from Afghan forces who surrendered it. Though no one knows the exact value, U.S. defense officials have confirmed it is significant.
Speaking to a select group of journalists at his office Monday in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, Kakar did not provide any…
