New Toys? Viral Videos Allegedly Show Taliban Patrolling Kandahar Skies in US Black Hawk Choppers
© AP Photo / Rahmat Gul
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Late last week, video footage surfaced showing what appeared to be a group of Taliban militants taxiing a US-made UH-60 Black Hawk once operated by American forces. The now-viral video is just one of several social media snaps in which Taliban forces are reportedly reclaiming US military equipment.
As the US-led coalition wrapped up its final evacuations from Afghanistan on Monday, yet another Taliban-linked Black Hawk video began making the rounds online, furthering some individuals' frustrations with US President Joe Biden's expedited withdrawal of American troops.
The nearly 30-second clip shows a four-blade, medium-lift utility helicopter cruising through the skies in what was alleged to be Kandahar, Afghanistan.
WATCH: Taliban reportedly flying American-made Black Hawk helicopter over Kandahar, Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/yNZPknlrZY
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) August 30, 2021
Several aspects of the video and its accompanying narrative were picked apart, with most netizens wondering how a Taliban militant would be able to operate a notoriously difficult chopper like the UH-60 without proper training.
A second, much more questionable Black Hawk clip caused a commotion online after podcaster Liz Wheeler claimed it looked like the Taliban was "hanging somebody" from the UH-60.
I swear I don't know what's going on here. 😵 pic.twitter.com/AYWFx6iVtX
— FJ (@Natsecjeff) August 30, 2021
Of course, one can visibly see the individual is donning a helmet while strapped in the chopper's rope system.
In both cases, the date of capture remains a mystery, but the attached narrative is not too farfetched. With the Taliban making massive gains in recent months, several images and clips have emerged showing the militants engaging with the equipment.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), who is also a supply corps officer with the US Navy Reserves, recently reprimanded the Biden administration's apparent carelessness with costly US-made equipment left behind amid the recent evacuations.
"The Taliban now has access to over $85 billion worth of American military equipment. That includes 75,000 vehicles, over 200 airplanes and helicopters [and] over 600,000 small arms and light weapons," he said on August 27.
"The Taliban now has more Black Hawk helicopters than 85% of the countries in the world," he said, highlighting that the US also left behind body armor, night-vision goggles, medical supplies and biometric devices that contain the fingerprints, eye scans and other data belonging to Afghans who assisted the US in recent years.
General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr., commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), pushed back against fears of the Taliban uncovering such a cache on Monday, noting that American military personnel purposefully destroyed - or "demilitarized" - most of the equipment, including the counter rocket, artillery and mortar (C-RAM) systems used to defend the airspace near Hamid Karzai International Airport.
.@AP's @LBaldor to Gen. McKenzie: "Can you give us a sense of there were any Americans or civilians taken out on any of the last couple of C-17s that flew out this afternoon & can you give us a picture of what you saw w/equipment & other things getting destroyed or removed[?]" pic.twitter.com/l48LdLFULd
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 30, 2021
"We demilitarized those systems so that they'll never be used again," he said. "We felt it more important to protect our forces than to bring those systems back."
The CENTCOM commander detailed that 70 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft "will never be used by anyone" following the demilitarization.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters earlier this month that the Biden administration does not have a "complete picture" of where every piece of US artillery and equipment is. However, "a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban," he added.
