Arms Sent by U.S. May Be Falling Into Taliban Hands

The New York Times

Published: May 19, 2009

By C. J. CHIVERS

Insurgents in Afghanista are located in the poorest and most remote regions on earth where it is virtually impossible to provide themselves with supplies such as munitions. On the other hand, American and Afghanistan forces are materially superior. Thus, there has been questions posed on how insurgents in Afghanistan have managed for years to maintain their forces against American and Afghanistan forces under such a condition.

An examination of ammunition markings by The New York Times and interviews with American officers and arms dealers hint at one possible reason. The examination reveals that military supplies provided by the United States to American and Afghanistan forces have been found in dead insurgents. At least 17 of 30 rifle magzines collected from dead bodies were idenfied to be identical to ammunition the United States had provided to Afghan government forces. This is a strong hint that munitions procured by the U.S Defense Department have been used against American troops due to poor discipline and corruption among Afghan forces.

Military officials, arms analysts and dealers said that it is not enough for spotty American and Afghan controls to take control of the vast inventory of weapons and ammunition sent to Afghanistan during the conflict. 

The United States has been criticized by the federal Government Accountability Office for failing to take responsibility for thousands of rifles issued to Afghan security. In response to the criticism, the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan admitted that it is difficult to keep track of ammunition that are more liquid than firearms. The reasons include limited resources and institutional memory of issued arms. As well, absence of collaboration between field units and the investigators and supervisors in Kabul is also a reason that makes the tracing work difficult.

Military officers said that it is not easy to figure out whether the Afghan government is a significant Taliban supplier or not. Mr. Beven has documented ammunition diversion in Kenya, Uganda, and Sudan. He said that soldiers or police officers might have sold ammunition. The American military's Capt. James C. Howell was not surprised to learn the possibility that theft or corruption could have steered Wolf and Czech ammunition to insurgents. He also added that this has been resulted from causes such as poor discipline and oversight in the Afghan national security forces (A.N.S.F).

The deputy commander of the transition command General Ierardi said, "the emphasis from our perspective is on accountability of all logistics property." He said that leakage of supplied armaments is the worst-case scenario: "we want to guard against the exact scenario you laid out."

Opinion: This article points out what has always been considered as one of the most serious problems in Afghanistan: leakage of the munition in Afghanistan. The leakage of supplied armaments is giving Taliban more chances to resist the U.S and Afghanistan forces. It is shocking that our men are being killed by what we have produced. The leakage of supplies should be addressed as soon as possible because Taliban might start developing their own arms based on the structure and designs of the U.S. arms. Taliban is arguably the most ferocious terrorist organization on earth and such a development of weapons of destruction could bring about a horrible consequence where many people lose their lives and possibly Taliban takes control of Afghanistan once again. The United States Military has investigated the routes how Taliban forces are supplied with U.S-supplied munition. From the investigation, they learned that it is practically not possible for spotty U.S and Afghanistan forces to take control of such a vast region of Afghanistan. As well, poor disciplined and corrupt Afghanistan forces are also accused for leaking the munition to Taliban. In order to prevent this from happening again, the United States should come up with a set of rules to apply on Afghanistan forces. As well, I believe it is really necessary to investigate whether the Afghanistan government is behind Taliban forces as the collective effort of the United States and Afghanistan is required to remove such a terrorist organization.