Taliban have more Black Hawk choppers than 85% countries
Darpan News Desk IANS, 30 Aug, 2021 10:56 AM
New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) US Republican Congressman Jim Banks has revealed that the Taliban now have more Black Hawk helicopters than 85 per cent of the countries in the world, the Daily Mail reported.
Banks, who served in Afghanistan as an officer in charge of supplying weapons, said: "Due to the negligence of this administration, the Taliban now have access to $85 billion worth of military equipment."
The militant group's metamorphosis from rag-tag guerrilla force to highly professional, impressively equipped army has been at the expense of Western taxpayers, the report said.
The UK and the US have picked up the tab not only for the eye-wateringly expensive hardware, but also the training budget -- as the Taliban's ranks have been swollen by defectors from the Afghan National Security Forces.
The irony is that the Taliban's newfound arsenal was supposed to prevent Afghanistan falling into Taliban hands, it added.
The group appears to have helped themselves to the state-of-the-art MBITR-2 (Multi-band Intrateam Radios) favoured by US Green Berets but denied to most conventional UK personnel. They were issued to Afghan government forces.
What's more, their weapons appear immaculately clean and well maintained, their uniforms looked washed and ironed and they carry their weapons as British soldiers are taught to carry theirs.
The transformation in the group's appearance and capability could scarcely be more vivid or disturbing, the report said.
Sandals and shalwar kameez have been replaced by combat boots and tailored camouflage uniforms.
Ancient AK47s are nowhere to be seen. Instead today's Taliban carry US Green Beret-issue M4 carbines with telescoping stocks.
The Taliban of 15 years ago were seldom if ever seen wearing helmets. But today their headwear is more expensive and more advanced than that worn by most British troops, it added.
The Biden administration has kept in place travel restrictions that have severely curtailed international trips to the U.S., citing the spread of the delta variant of the virus. Under the rules, non-U.S. residents who have been to China, the European Schengen area, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, South Africa and India in the prior 14 days are prohibited from entering the U.S.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last week warned the Delta variant of the virus is so contagious, vaccinated people who do get infected could be just as big a risk to others as people who aren't vaccinated.
The new requirement, which will be phased in over several weeks in August and September, is the most aggressive step the city has taken yet to curb a surge in cases caused by the delta variant.
The findings have the potential to upend past thinking about how the disease is spread. Previously, vaccinated people who got infected were thought to have low levels of virus and to be unlikely to pass it to others. But the new data shows that is not the case with the delta variant.
President Joe Biden is calling on states and local governments to join those that are already handing out dollars for shots. New York, the nation's biggest city, started doling out $100 awards on Friday.
