Afghan watchdog: US taxpayer-funded weapons left behind have formed ‘core of the Taliban security apparatus’

The final report from a government watchdog tasked with overseeing Afghanistan reconstruction efforts declared that “U.S. taxpayer-funded equipment, weapons, and facilities” left behind during the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal have now “formed the core of the Taliban security apparatus.” 

The 137-page document released this week from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) states that Congress provided approximately $144.7 billion for Afghanistan reconstruction between 2002 to 2021, as part of a mission promising to bring stability and democracy to the country, “yet ultimately delivered neither.” 

“Due to the Taliban takeover, SIGAR was unable to inspect any of the equipment provided to, or facilities constructed for, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) following the Afghan government’s collapse,” the report said. “However, DOD determined that the United States left behind approximately $7.1 billion in material and equipment it had given to the ANDSF.” 

“Similarly, any remaining ANDSF facilities that were not destroyed, can be assumed to be under Taliban control. These U.S. taxpayer-funded equipment, weapons, and facilities have formed the core of the Taliban security apparatus,” it added.

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The U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan concluded in August 2021 under the Biden administration. 

A Pentagon watchdog found the following year that, “Afghan forces had 316,260 weapons, worth $511.8 million, as well as ammunition and other equipment in their stocks when the former government fell, though the operational condition of these items was unknown.” 

“The DoD reported that the U.S. military removed or destroyed nearly all major equipment used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan throughout the drawdown period in 2021,” the Pentagon watchdog said at the time.

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In the SIGAR report released this week, Gene Aloise, the Acting Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, wrote that, “Multiple factors contributed to the failure of the U.S. effort to transform a war-torn, underdeveloped country into a stable and prosperous democracy.” 

“For example, early and ongoing U.S. decisions to ally with corrupt, human-rights-abusing powerbrokers bolstered the insurgency and undermined the mission, including U.S. goals for bringing democracy and good governance to Afghanistan,” he wrote in a letter attached to the report. “Efforts to improve Afghanistan’s economic and social conditions also failed to have a lasting impact. And, despite nearly $90 billion in U.S. appropriations for security-sector assistance, Afghan security forces ultimately collapsed quickly without a sustained U.S. military presence.” 

The SIGAR report said the “ANDSF remained reliant on the U.S. military in part because the United States designed the ANDSF as a mirror image of U.S. forces, which required a high degree of professional military sophistication and leadership.

“This created long-term ANDSF dependencies. As a result of those dependencies, the decision to withdraw all U.S. military personnel and dramatically reduce U.S. support to the ANDSF destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and police,” the watchdog said. 

“Despite Afghanistan falling to the Taliban in 2021, the United States continued to be the nation’s largest donor, having disbursed more than $3.83 billion in humanitarian and development assistance there since,” it also revealed. “In the March 2025 quarter alone, disbursements totaled $120 million.”