Weapons left behind by US forces during the withdrawal from Afghanistan are making a comeback in another conflict, further arming militants in South Asia’s disputed Kashmir region in what experts say may be just the beginning of the global weapons journey.
Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir told NBC News that militants seeking to annex the region to Pakistan are carrying M4, M16, and other US-made weapons and ammunition that have rarely been seen in the 30-year conflict. One of the main reasons, they say, is a regional wave of US-funded weapons that fell into Taliban hands as US-led NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
Most of the weapons recovered so far, authorities say, come from Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), both Pakistan-based militant groups that the United States designates as terrorist organizations. In a Twitter post last year, for example, police said they seized an M4 carbine assault rifle after a shootout that killed two JeM militants.
Militants from both groups had been sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban or to train them before the US withdrawal, the lieutenant colonel said. Emron Mousavi, spokesman for the Indian army in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.
“It can be safely assumed they have access to the guns left behind,” he said in an email last year.
Government officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan did not respond to requests for comment.
Kashmir, a Himalayan region known for its beautiful landscapes, shares borders with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China. A separatist insurgency in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1990s and has been a constant source of tension between nuclear powers India and Pakistan.
The year got off to a violent start when Kashmiri police blamed militants for an attack on 1 January. 1 shooting killed four in the southern village of Dhangri, followed by an explosion in the same area the next day that killed a 5-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. At least six people were injured in January. 21 in two explosions in the city of Jammu.
While US-made weapons are unlikely to change the balance of power in the Kashmir conflict, they provide the Taliban with a considerable reserve of combat power potentially available to those willing and able to purchase it, said Jonathan Schroeder, director of the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the Center for Naval Analyses, a research group based outside Washington.
“When combined with the Taliban’s need for money and existing smuggling networks, that tank poses a substantial threat to regional players for years to come,” he said.
More than $7.1 billion in US-funded military equipment was in the possession of the Afghan government when it fell into the hands of the Taliban in August 2021 during the withdrawal, according to a Defense Department report released last August. While more than half were land vehicles, it also included more than 316,000 weapons worth nearly $512 million, as well as ammunition and other accessories.
While it is likely that large numbers of small arms transferred to Afghan forces ended up in the hands of the Taliban, “it is important to remember that nearly all of the weapons and equipment used by US military forces in Afghanistan were recalled or destroyed before our retreat”, the lieutenant colonel of the Army. Rob Lodewick, a Pentagon spokesman, in a statement.
The Defense Department report also noted that the operational status of Afghan military equipment was unknown.
Questions about the weapons being used in Kashmir arose in January 2022 when a video of militants brandishing what appeared to be US-made weapons was widely shared on Indian social media. While the origin of the weapons in these cases may be difficult to verify (some may be modified to look like US weapons, while others may not have been made in the US), the Indian Army says it has recovered at least seven that are genuine.
