Newly surfaced video footage has shown what appears to be Taliban militants taking a costly Black Hawk helicopter out for a joyride after taking control of a multitude of weapons left behind by fleeing Afghan security forces.
A one-minute video clip making the rounds on social media captures the UH-60 Black Hawk chopper taxiing the tarmac at an undisclosed airport in Afghanistan. The plane is never seen hovering more than a few inches from the ground.
Speculation suggests that the aircraft, manned earlier by Afghan security forces, was part of additional equipment and artillery that was kept at the Kandahar airport in southeastern Afghanistan.
While it’s unclear who exactly is manning the aircraft, it’s also uncertain whether the militant forces were ever able to fully fly the military helicopter.
The footage comes as various photos have emerged online showing Taliban forces donning full US military garbs that had been left behind by security forces amid the militant group’s forward and swift overtake of much of the Central Asian nation.
However, the Taliban’s newfound claim to American hardware is not entirely new either. Just as reports began to trickle in about the Taliban entering Kabul and former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the capital city, it was also revealed that much of the abandoned army gear was effectively forfeited to the Taliban.
Jake Sullivan, who serves as the national security adviser to the Biden administration, admitted last week to reporters that the Taliban had managed to get ahold of a “fair amount” of military equipment.
"We don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban," Sullivan remarked. "Obviously, we don't have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport."
A tally recently obtained by Reuters indicates the Taliban could have more than 2,000 armored vehicles and possibly up to 40 aircraft. Over a 15-year period, the US handed over an estimated $28 billion worth of arms to the Afghan military, which the US had been training for years.
Reports have hinted that officials weighed the possibility of conducting strikes on weapons so as to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Taliban. In fact, Thursday reports detailed that a blast that sounded off near the Hamid Karzai International Airport was caused by US soldiers who were attempting to destroy some equipment.
The explosion itself raised alarm in the area, as it had followed a pair of deadly detonations by Daesh-K* that prompted the deaths of at least 13 US soldiers and dozens of Afghan nationals, many of whom were women and children.
*The Taliban and Daesh-K are both terrorist organizations outlawed in Russia and many other states.