According to Reuters, Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khwarazmi said Sunday’s parade was also held to celebrate the graduation of 250 newly trained soldiers.
The display included dozens of U.S.-made M1117 armored security vehicles driving slowly up and down a major road in Kabul, and Mi-17 helicopters were overhead. Many of the soldiers involved carried American weapons, including the M4 assault rifle.
The U.S. military gave money, weapons, and training to the Afghan government forces for years. Still, the Afghan forces decayed this August when the Taliban were able to overtake the country and destroy the previous regime.
The U.S.-backed Afghan military had held more than 150 aircraft before the Taliban took over, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, which suggested this in a recent quarterly report.
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It explained the inventory of the Afghan air force, which included 23 usable A-29 “Super Tucano” turboprop ground-attack aircraft, three usable C-130 transport aircraft, 33 usable UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, and 43 smaller MD 530 choppers, among others.
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According to a report last year by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the U.S. government gave more than $US28 billion ($38 billion) worth of defense articles and services to the Afghan government from 2002 to 2017. That included weapons, ammunition, vehicles, night-vision devices, aircraft, and surveillance systems.
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Some of the aircraft were flown into neighboring central Asian countries by fleeing Afghan forces, but the Taliban have inherited other aircraft. It remains unclear how many are operational.
U.S. military staff took or destroyed some of the technology and equipment before the departure at the end of August. They left 70 MRAPs and 27 Humvees, both military vehicles, and 73 aircraft inoperable, Gen. Frank McKenzie told journalists at the time. The United States left the C-RAM defense system, which prevented at least one terror attempt, in place until the very end.
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Most of the weapons and equipment the Taliban forces are now using are supplied by Washington to the US-backed government in Kabul to construct an Afghan national force capable of fighting the Taliban.
Those forces melted away with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's fleeing from Afghanistan — leaving the Taliban to take over major military assets.
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Taliban officials have said that pilots, mechanics, and other specialists from the former Afghan National Army would be inserted into a new force.
It has also started donning conventional military uniforms in place of the traditional Afghan clothing normally worn by its fighters.
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