The United States spent billions supplying the Afghan military with the tools to defeat the Taliban, but the rapid capitulation of the armed forces means that weaponry is now fuelling the insurgents’ astonishing battlefield successes.
“We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools — let me emphasise: all the tools,” US President Joe Biden said when defending his decision to withdraw American forces and leave the fight to the locals.
But Afghan defence forces have shown little appetite for that fight and, in their tens of thousands, have been laying down their arms — only for the Taliban to immediately pick them up.
The Taliban’s social media is awash with videos of Taliban fighters seizing weapons caches, the majority supplied by Western powers.
Footage of Afghan soldiers surrendering in the northern city of Kunduz shows army vehicles loaded with heavy weapons and mounted with artillery guns safely in the hands of the insurgent rank and file.
In the western city of Farah,…
