In shocking footage from Afghanistan Monday, a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter can be seen flying over the streets of Kandahar with someone dangling below it on a rope. The UH-60 Black Hawk was reportedly piloted by a Taliban militant in the southeastern Afghan city.
The Talib Times, which claims to be the “official news” handle of the Isamic Emirate Afghanistan, proudly posted the video onto Twitter, writing: “Our Air Force! At this time, the Islamic Emirate’s air force helicopters are flying over Kandahar city and patrolling the city.”
https://twitter.com/TalibTimes/status/1432328727376007171?s=20
#Taliban flying an American-supplied UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter over #Kandahar today.
Former US Navy reservist Jim Banks has said: Taliban has #US military equipments include 75,000 vehicles, 200 airplanes and helicopters, and 600,000 small arms https://t.co/hLU7yL4cXC— Ibrahim Hamidi ابراهيم حميدي (@ibrahimhamidi) August 30, 2021
This comes just days after another video showed Taliban attempting to fly a captured Blackhawk helicopter over the ground at the Kandahar Airport, in southeastern Afghanistan.
https://twitter.com/BabakTaghvaee/status/1430529049881976842?s=20
The Taliban has reportedly seized an estimated $85 billion worth of US weaponry, including over 126,000 pistols, 350,000 assault rifles, 64,000 machine guns, hundreds of armored vehicles, 22,174 Humvees and 74 aircraft, including 33 Black Hawks.
As the Biden administration assesses the amount of equipment left in Afghanistan, the Taliban has been trolling the US by posing in American uniforms and high-tech gear like night vision goggles while driving around in armoured Humvees.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a former military sales officer during the Afghanistan War, said during a news conference on August 24 that the Taliban now has “more Black Hawk helicopters than 85 percent of the world.”
“I acquired American military equipment to equip the Afghans with — you can imagine how shameful I find it that today all of that equipment has fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” he said.
Banks said that if and/or when these weapons are turned on Americans, the blood will be on Biden’s hands.
“The Taliban now has biometric devices which have the fingerprints, eye scans and biographical information of all the Afghans who helped us and were on our side in the last 20 years,” he explained. “There is no plan by this administration to get those weapons back. There is no plan to account for any of this equipment or these weapons.”
He added: “Let me be very clear, if any American is harmed, injured or killed and not safely evacuated out of Afghanistan, or if any of these weapons or this military equipment is used to harm, injure, or kill an American now or at any time in the future, the blood is on Joe Biden’s hands.”
The New York Post reported that the Taliban “has mobilized a special unit, called Al Isha, to hunt down Afghans who helped US and allied forces” using biometric devices and data to do it.
Nawazuddin Haqqani, one of the brigade commanders over the Al Isha unit, bragged in an interview with Zenger News that his unit is using US-made hand-held scanners to tap into a massive US-built biometric database and positively identify any person who helped the NATO allies or worked with Indian intelligence. Afghans who try to deny or minimize their role will find themselves contradicted by the detailed computer records that the US left behind in its frenzied withdrawal.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan admitted that the Taliban has indeed seized our military equipment, but claimed that the White House does not “have a complete picture” of what “has fallen into the hands of the Taliban.”
“Those Black Hawks were not given to the Taliban. They were given to the Afghan National Security Forces to be able to defend themselves at the specific request of President [Ashraf] Ghani, who came to the Oval Office and asked for additional air capability, among other things,” Sullivan said earlier this month.
“So the president had a choice. He could not give it to them with the risk that it would fall into the Taliban’s hands eventually, or he could give it to them with the hope that they could deploy it in service of defending their country.”
Sullivan continued: “Both of those options had risks. He had to choose. And he made a choice.”