The terrorists who attacked the Jaffar Express train in Baluchistan last month used guns when the forces of the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, an investigation of The Washington Post revealed on Monday.
The Express Jaffer was attacked on March 11 when the terrorists of the Baluchistan Liberation Army (Bla) ambush the train to Peshawar with 440 passengers, opening fire and taking hostages. Consequently, security forces began an operation that lasted two days.
The general director of Public Relations between Services, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said on March 12 that the authorization operation of Jaffar Express launched a day after the unprecedented kidnapping of the train, was completed. He added that all terrorists, 33 in total, at the attack site had been killed.
According The postA M4A1 carbine rifle built by the American manufacturer Colt was recovered from the attack site. The rifle serial number indicated that it was part of billions of dollars in weapons sent to US forces in Afghanistan, which abandoned much of its team by retiring in 2021.
“Many of the weapons ended through the border in Pakistan, in Bazaars of Arms and in the hands of the insurgents, illustrating how the consequences of the failed war of the United States continue to reverberate years after the fall of Kabul against the Taliban.” The Washington Post wrote.
The publication wrote that Pakistan is now trying to contain terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, where combatants are equipped with US weapons and teams.
American rifles, machine guns and night vision glasses, originally destined to help stabilize Afghanistan, are now being used by Pakistan Tehreek-I-Taliban (TTP) and other groups to carry out attacks, The post He informed to quote arms merchants and government officials.
Ahmad Hussain, 35, a special forces agent who was seriously injured in a night attack in KP last year, he said The post“They have the last weapons made in the United States.
“They could see us, but we couldn’t see them,” he added.
The post He added that in May 2024, Pakistani officials gave access to the role to dozens of weapons that said they were seized of captured or dead terrorists.
After months of consultations, the US Army. And the Pentagon confirmed The post that 63 of the weapons that were shown to journalists had been provided by the United States government to the Afghan National Forces. Most of the weapons were M16 rifles, along with several more modern M4 carbines.
Pakistani officials also showed a handful of PVS14 night vision devices, which are widely used by the US army but The post He could not verify them independently as the old property of the United States government.
“After Jaffar Express attack, Pakistani officials provided serial numbers for three American rifles allegedly used by attackers”, ” The post wrote.
“At least two came from US actions and had been provided to Afghan forces,” the document added, citing records obtained through the Law on Freedom of Information.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement in January that “the presence of American advanced weapons … It has been a problem of deep concern for the security of Pakistan.”
The post He added that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, has threatened to permanently reduce the help suspended to Afghanistan unless the Taliban returns the military team.
“We leave billions, tens of billions of dollars in team behind … all the first -line things,” Trump said during his first cabinet meeting in February. “I think we should recover that team a lot.”
“His comments have revived hope in Islamabad that the United States will move more decisively to account for their missing military team.” The post wrote. However, “most believe that it is too late to stop the flow of illicit weapons.”
“They are now owned by Afghanistan,” he said in response to Trump Zabihullah Mujahid, the main spokesman of the Taliban government, in response to Trump. “No one can get away from us.”
According The postMichael Kugelman, an analyst at Asia del Sur, commented that Pakistan runs the risk of “falling back into that terrible period between 2009 and 2014, when the country was an important magnet for terrorism.”
A Treasury for the Taliban
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, more than $ 7 billion in military teams provided by the United States were still in the country, the special inspector of the reconstruction of Afghanistan (SIGAR) estimated in a report.
“The US army had an unequal record of monitoring weapons provided to Afghans, Sigar concluded, which was exacerbated by its’ abrupt and uncoordinated ‘withdrawal’, The post aggregate.
The document added that under then President Joe Biden, US officials refused to accept responsibility.
“The Department of Defense provided weapons and equipment after ‘careful considerations of the end user, including the risks of enemy capture'”. The post He wrote citing a Pentagon statement, adding that the department “had no intention of recovering them.”
“The material ‘could have been captured by the Taliban and then used or transferred in another place”, “,”. ” The post He wrote citing the agency.
“Once transferred to the Afghan government, they were the property of the Afghan government and its responsibility,” said a senior defense official in a statement to The post.
The pentagon refused to reveal the name of the official to The Washington Post Or justify why they could not provide it.
The weapons seized by Pakistan “comprise a tiny portion of the total we buy for Afghans for more than a decade,” added the official.
Sigar estimated that more than 250,000 rifles were left, as well as almost 18,000 night vision glasses.
The post He wrote that the glasses used by the insurgents undermine the technological advantages of the modern military, who use infrared lasers and stirrups to coordinate the attacks and monitor the friendly troops. These devices are invisible to the naked eye, but are illuminated by the night vision.
“Just after the acquisition of the Taliban, the latest night devices were sold at a waste rate,” said Raz Muhammad, a Pakistani arms merchant. The post. “Around August 2021, the devices, which are sold for around $ 2,000, were sold for less than $ 300,” he said.
Verification requests for The post He revealed the maintenance of random records in a pentagon database that tracks small arms and light arms, where between recovered weapons there were three M203 grenades launches that are incorrectly listed as rifles in the database.
The pitchers adhere to the lower part of the rifles and someone may have confused the two serial numbers when documenting them, the authorities said.
Among the other articles recovered by the Pakistani authorities and are shown to The post They were sets of American body armor and lots of ammunition.
“The Pentagon left millions of rounds, found Sigar, including ammunition for heavy weapons that can penetrate vehicles and tear down airplanes.” The post wrote.
Some of the weapons shown seemed to come from sources outside the United States, with at least one rifle reviewed by The post Be a Norinco CQ-A Chinese, an American M4 clone.
Very high demand
Throughout the border of Afghanistan, the bazaars of illicit weapons have done business with militants and other criminals, The post wrote.
One of the oldest markets is in Darra Adam Khel in KP. Sellers say that the market dates back to the First Anglo-Fgana War, in the mid-nineteenth century, when this part of Pakistan was disputed between the Afghan and British forces.
However, the withdrawal of the United States caused the most dramatic days of the market, at least in recent memory. “The market was flooded with American weapons,” Raz Muhammad recalled.
The post He then cited a forbidden outfit member, who acknowledged that his combatants benefited from the tight prices and abundant supplies.
As the Pakistani militants used weapons to intensify their insurgency, the security forces raided the markets and arrested the sellers, The post wrote. The few M4 for sale in Darra were hidden and prices fired.
“The recently launched propaganda material showed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants with night vision devices made by the United States, M4 with thermal optics and infrared lasers mounted on rifle,” the newspaper added.
Last year, a United Nations report concluded that the “classified” Afghan Taliban “directly supply the forbidden group with weapons and equipment. The TTP and the Afghan Taliban have denied the statements, according to The post.
The wave of violence along the Afghan border has led to a serious deterioration in relations between the two countries. At the end of December, Pakistani air attacks killed 46 people in eastern Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban have responded angry at Islamabad’s requests to control the TTP, and Trump’s threats that future help depends on the return of the military teams provided by the United States.
Pakistani officials are fixing their hopes in the Trump administration, despite the concerns that the freezing of foreign aid and the suspension of the United States refugee intake program could feed additional instability in the region.
