Afghan interim govt promoting trade of illegal arms: UN report
Pakistan
Terrorists have managed to get US abandoned weapons
LAHORE (Dunya News) - A recent report issued by the United Nations has revealed that the interim Afghan government has promoted the trade of illegal weapons since the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan in 2021.
The report said banned organisations – TTP, al-Qaeda, and other ‘Fitna al-Khawarij’ – managed to have access to the weapons, adding Afghanistan has become a black market of illegal arms.
“The US-made weapons are being smuggled to the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan and being used against them by the terrorists,” the report said.
It further said that according to President Trump weapons worth billions of dollars were left in Afghanistan at the time of the US troops’ abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“The terrorists of al-Qaeda under the Afghan interim government are armed with the US rifles, and the Afghan government has made it its sate policy to generate revenue from selling and smuggling the US abandoned weapons to banned terrorist groups,” the report said.
Many local commanders in Afghanistan view weapons obtained during the insurgency as personal property, or property of their respective fighting group, and therefore resist efforts to register and manage these arms centrally, according to the report.
Additionally, internal divisions within the Taliban, along with the personal networks of commanders, provide informal pathways to acquire weapons, bypassing formal approval processes.
These challenges led to significant variations in control practices from province to province based on the influence of local commanders and their relationship with Afghan central authorities, it said.
