Photos show Taliban fighters posing in the cockpit of an Afghan Air Force plane after the US withdrew its troops and left equipment behind

August 31, 2021

Photos show Taliban fighters posing in the cockpit of an Afghan Air Force plane after the US withdrew its troops and left equipment behind

Two Taliban fighters sit in the chairs in a jet cockpit — Taliban fighters sit in the cockpit of an Afghan Air Force aircraft at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021.
WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images

Taliban fighters have access to equipment left behind by the US, Afghan, and other militaries.
Photos show them in an Afghan Air Force jet after taking control of Kabul airport after US withdrawal.
The US said it disabled a lot of its military equipment so the Taliban can't use it.
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Taliban fighters took control of Kabul airport after the last US military jet left the country on Monday.

Photos published on Tuesday show militants posing in the cockpits of Afghan Air Force jets that had once been used against them, which was left behind alongside large amounts of US military equipment. The Afghan Air Force had previously trained with the US-led coalition.

A Taliban fighter smiles as he sits in the cockpit of a jet — A Taliban fighter sits in the cockpit of an Afghan Air Force aircraft at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021, after the US has pulled all its troops out of the country.
WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images

Other photos also show Taliban fighters walking around and looking at the equipment left behind.

A member of the Taliban walks out of an Afghan Air Force aircraft at the airport in Kabul on August 31, 2021.
WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images

The US military, the Afghan Air Force, and other nations' militaries had left behind equipment that the Taliban can now access.

A US general said on Monday that the US military permanently disabled over 150 vehicles and aircraft when leaving so the Taliban could not use them.

But, as Insider's Ryan Pickrell reported, the Taliban had managed to get its hands on a lot of American-made weapons as the US has spent billions of dollars arming Afghanistan's military.

Read the original article on Business Insider