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Hundreds of American Humvees were left to rust in junkyards Afghanistanthree years after the US handed over the trucks – so symbolic of its military campaign in the country – to the new Taliban regime.
New satellite images from former NATO and US bases in several Afghan provinces show US-made vehicles dismantled and gutted, their parts strewn haphazardly across garages and open-air properties.
US forces have sought to dismantle or destroy much of their machinery, from aircraft to computer systems, in the final weeks of their chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war. But much still fell to the Taliban in August 2021 when the US-trained Afghan army collapsed and surrendered to Islamist militants, according to US defense officials.
The Pentagon says US forces left behind more than $7.2 billion worth of military equipment during that time. Glimpses of this legacy military hardware can occasionally be seen at Taliban events, such as the large parade the Taliban held at Bagram Air Base in August to mark their three years in power.
Images immediately after the withdrawal show Taliban militants seizing US-supplied firepower, including weapons, ammunition, helicopters and other modern military equipment.
The Independent analyzed images from Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Khost and Ghazni showing Humvees, along with other military and heavy vehicles such as Rangers and military tracks provided by US forces to the Afghan National Defense Security Forces (ANDSF) and government police before the crash Kabul in August 2021.
Most of these Humvees are seen in images from Afghanistan’s two power centers – Kabul and Kandahar – with a few in the courtyard of Kabul International Airport. Most of the Humvees in Kandahar can also be seen at the now-abandoned US military base near Spin Boldak Road.
Unlike the available images from 2019 and 2020, when US and Afghan forces jointly operated the bases, images from the present time, under the Taliban regime, show the poor condition of these vehicles.
Qais Alamdar, an open source intelligence researcher and analyst, confirms that The Independent that at least 20 geolocated coordinates from Afghanistan show abandoned Humvees, as well as other armored vehicles, trucks and tanks.
“Comparison [of images] since before the Taliban took over shows that they are no longer able to maintain this expensive NATO machinery, and there are several reasons for this – including maintenance and expensive fuel to run them,” he says.
In the first few months of their takeover, the Taliban used these Humvees along with pickup trucks to patrol parts of Afghanistan’s provinces, but they appear to have discarded dozens of them over the years, Alamdar says.
Besmillah Taban, former director general of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) under Ashraf Ghani’s government, says fuel to run Humvees is more expensive and spare parts to repair them are impossible to get outside the US and European markets.
“It’s not just the fuel that uses five to six times more than the average vehicle, but you can’t even find a fraction of a Humvee in Afghanistan. bazaar. You must order from the United Arab Emirates. Humvees turned out to be expensive to maintain and, frankly, out of the budget for the Taliban,” he says.
“It seems that local Taliban leaders have now switched to using motorcycles for patrolling, especially in areas such as Baghlan and Badakhshan,” he says.
Taban, who worked in Kabul near where the Humvees were disposed of, says mechanics who used to work for NATO forces are now in the US or other parts of the world and are afraid to return to Afghanistan.
“Even if you manage to buy a spare part or repair a Humvee in such dire conditions, you can do it for 10 to 12 Humvees, not 100 or 200 Humvees,” says Taban.
As a result, the Humvees are now just a showpiece of stolen American equipment, stationed at the country’s border crossings.
In a rare show of force, a convoy of Humvees was used to guard the funeral procession of senior Taliban minister Khalil Haqqani, who was killed in a suicide bombing last week. Sources present at his funeral said The Independent that a convoy of about 30 to 40 Humvees was lined up at the funeral in Paktia province.
In the absence of spare parts, the Taliban are cannibalizing these Humvees, says Lynne O’Donnell, an Afghanistan journalist and analyst. Satellite images showed several Humvees that appeared to be broken or completely gutted.
Pointing to how the Taliban have been able to repair Black Hawk helicopters and other US military aircraft they have flown in Afghanistan, she says the US has been training the Afghan military to repair and maintain billions of dollars worth of materiel flown into the republic to build its military capacity.
The US has spent about $83 billion on developing and maintaining Afghan security forces from 2001 to 2021, according to reports by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which oversees US taxpayer money spent on the conflict.
Ahmad Zia Saraj, who served as Afghanistan’s spy chief from 2019 to 2021, says there are concerns that the Taliban will be able to raise funds by selling parts of former US military hardware on the black market through neighbors such as Pakistan and Iran.
“As soon as the Taliban captured the depots of the Ministry of Defense, they were looted, they stole a lot of things, weapons, ammunition and these spare parts of these vehicles and they were all sold on the black markets of Pakistan,” he says.
“Soon they will just sell these NATO vehicles as scrap metal and of course the market will be Pakistan and how Pakistan will use it later,” he says.