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Pentagon struggles with estimates as Taliban display weapons US forces dump for new regime
Since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban August 15 or thereabout, America has been worried not only about the humanitarian crisis resulting from the fall, but also about the weaponry its hasty exit has bequeathed to the fundamentalist group.
The Taliban is also making a show of it, rubbing it in as the US military try to figure things out.
Pictures of the Taliban fighters posing with US-made weapons are now many online, uploaded during the Afghan Independence Day celebration
President Joe Biden has been taking flak for the decision that rocked the foundation of 20-year coalition efforts in stabilizing Afghanistan and riding it of terrorists.
The debate is still on, according to a CNN report, on how much the Taliban can max out the weapons America dumped on the Afghan forces that melted as soon as the coalition forces decided to exit.
Taliban, traditionally, are more at home with Russia-made weapons. So maintaining the current hardware may prove difficult in the long run.
Below is an estimate of the strength of the arsenal the US might have helped build for the Mujaheed since 2001.
*20 Tucano planes
*Several Black Hawk helicopters
*US-supplied M4 carbines and M16 rifles –600,000
*7,000 machine guns,
*4,700 Humvees and more than
*20,000 plus grenades
*80,000 vehicles
*18 million rounds of 7.62mm and .50-caliber ammunition