Hundreds of Taliban fighters held a military parade in Kabul on Sunday displaying captured American military hardware including armoured vehicles in a show of strength that also marks the transition of an insurgent outfit to a regular army.

According to Khaama Press news agency, the parade formed part of the commissioning of fresh batch of trained soldiers, defence ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khwarazmi said. The 250 Taliban fighters graduated from 313 central corps in Kabul.

Dozens of U.S.-made M117 armoured security vehicles moved slowly up and down a major Kabul road with Russian MI-17 helicopters patrolling overhead. Many soldiers carried American made-M4 assault rifles, according to a Reuters report.

Military Parade of I.E.A in Kabul.
For full Video Click here👇 https://t.co/Upq1bAwJ3Z#Afghanistan  #Taliban pic.twitter.com/zCRebKJDAH

— Khalid Afghan (@KhalidAfg) November 14, 2021

Ironically, most of the weapons and equipment the Taliban forces are now using are those supplied by the US to the erstwhile Ashraf Ghani government to fight the Taliban. However, since the Afghan army melted away without firing a shot, the military hardware has now fallen into the hands of the Taliban fighters.

Taliban officials have said that pilots, mechanics and other specialists from the former Afghan National Army would be integrated into a new force, which has also started wearing regular military uniforms instead of the traditional Afghan dress that was worn by their fighters.

According to a report late last year by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar), the U.S. government transferred to the Afghan government more than $28 billion worth of defence articles and services, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, night-vision devices, aircraft, and surveillance systems, from 2002 to 2017.

Some of the aircraft were flown into neighbouring Central Asian Countries by fleeing Afghan forces, but the other aircraft have fallen into Taliban hands.

Pentagon officials have been emphasising at Senate hearings that when U.S. troops departed, they destroyed more than 70 aircraft, dozens of armoured vehicles and disabled air defences before flying out of Kabul after a chaotic evacuation operation.

However, the parade shows that a big chunk of US weaponry is intact and now being used by the Taliban.

Also read: Imran Khan relents – promises to allow transit of Indian wheat to Afghanistan through Pakistan