The Taliban have an air force.
From Paul Singer's (Elliot Management) Washington Free Beacon, May 6:
Taliban Earning Billions, Giving American Weaponry to Terrorist Groups as Afghanistan Once Again Becomes Jihadi Hotbed: Report
Taliban took in $3.4 billion in revenue over past year, boosting cash supply in wake of Biden admin's Afghan withdrawal
Taliban parades U.S. military vehicles August 14, 2024 (@pagahindu/X)
The Taliban took in $3.4 billion in revenue over the last year, boosting its cash supply by 14 percent amid the return of Afghanistan as a central safe haven for terrorist organizations across the Middle East, according to a U.S. government watchdog group.
The repercussions of the Biden administration’s disastrous 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan continue to reverberate across the war-torn country, with multiple al Qaeda affiliates accessing American-supplied "weapons seized from the former Afghan National Army," according to a new oversight report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The United States left 78 aircraft, 40,000 military vehicles, and over 300,000 weapons in Afghanistan in a withdrawal that saw 13 American service members lose their lives. According to the SIGAR report—which the watchdog group delivered to Congress on April 30—the Taliban transferred many of these arms directly to terrorist affiliates, while others made their way to the black market.
The Pentagon assesses that of around $18.6 billion worth of U.S. equipment provided to the Afghan Army over decades of support, $7.12 billion in weaponry remains in the Taliban’s possession. As a result, "terrorist groups continued to operate in and from Afghanistan amid ongoing U.S., UN, and regional concerns that the country remains a terrorist haven."
More than two dozen terrorist organizations are currently active in Afghanistan, including the Islamic State-affiliated Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). At least four al Qaeda offshoots are also using the country to organize operations. "Terrorist groups," SIGAR reported, "continued to use Afghan soil to train and plan attacks and a ‘small but steady’ flow of foreign terrorists continued to travel to Afghanistan and join one of over two dozen terror groups based there."
The findings come just months after the Trump administration terminated virtually all U.S.-funded assistance programs in Afghanistan, citing the Taliban’s ability to steal millions annually in American taxpayer cash. The Biden-Harris administration pumped nearly $4 billion into Afghanistan after the Taliban retook control of the country, with several million in previously allocated funds continuing to flow up until March 31 of this year. During much of this time, SIGAR repeatedly exposed instances of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that plagued U.S. aid efforts after the Taliban took power....
....MUCH MORE
The tables on pages 9 and 10 of the Inspector General's report are interesting.
