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Prey of the war: The Taliban staged a military parade with American vehicles and weapons in Kabul

The organization is continuing the process of turning it into a regular army, and its members staged a demonstration in the Afghan capital where they rode American armored vehicles and held U.S.-made rifles. The pro-Western army left behind much Western equipment with its collapse in the summer

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• Afghanistan

• Kabul

• Taliban

Reuters

Monday, November 15, 2021, 10:00 p.m.

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Taliban forces yesterday (Sunday) held a military parade in Kabul with American armored vehicles and Russian helicopters, in a demonstration showing the continuing change in their transformation from a rebel force into a regular permanent army.

The Taliban operated as a guerrilla organization for two decades, but it took advantage of the large stockpile of weapons and equipment left behind when the pro-Western government collapsed in August to strengthen its ranks.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said that the parade marked the end of the training of 250 soldiers.

During the exercise, dozens of M117 American armored security vehicles drove slowly up and down a main road in Kabul, with Russian-made MI-17 helicopters hovering over them.

Many soldiers were carrying American M4 rifles.

Become a conventional army.

Taliban soldiers in US anti-aircraft gunships in Kabul, yesterday (Photo: Reuters)

Replace the robes in uniform.

Taliban soldiers, yesterday (Photo: Reuters)

Most of the weapons and equipment currently used by Taliban forces were provided by Washington to the previous government in Kabul with the aim of building an Afghan national force capable of fighting the Taliban.

These forces collapsed rapidly with the escape of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani from the country, allowing the Taliban to seize large military assets.

Taliban officials said pilots, mechanics and other experts from the former Afghan National Army would be incorporated into a new force, which has also begun wearing conventional military uniforms instead of the traditional Afghan clothing typically worn by the organization's fighters.

Many pilots fled the country after falling to the Taliban.

A helicopter in the skies of Kabul, yesterday (Photo: Reuters)

According to a report released late last year by the Afghan Commissioner for Rehabilitation, U.S. governments transferred to the Afghan government from 2002 to 2017 security equipment and services worth more than $ 28 billion, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, night-vision devices, aircraft And tracking systems.

Some of the planes were flown to neighboring Central Asian countries by Afghan forces fleeing the Taliban, but the organization inherited other planes.

It is still unclear how many of them remained operational.

With the withdrawal of U.S. forces, they destroyed more than 70 planes, dozens of armored vehicles and shut down air defense systems before leaving the country via Kabul International Airport at the conclusion of a chaotic evacuation operation.

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