US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul has revealed that the Kabul regime equipped the TTP (Tehreek Taliban Pakistan) with weapons, the outfit banned by Islamabad.
Testifying at a committee hearing examining the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, Republican member McCaul said “the TTP, who the Taliban have supplied with weapons that the US left behind, is increasingly conducting terror attacks and Al Qaeda remains safely in Afghanistan under Taliban protection.”
The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, John Sopko, who was also present at the meeting, said the “current Afghan government is not fulfilling its obligations regarding the rights of women and children.”
The testimony of senior US officials authenticates Pakistan’s stance that the Islamic Emirate in Kabul equipped the TTP with weapons left behind by the withdrawing US forces which was used to carry out terror attacks in Pakistan. Those weapons were taken into custody from the terrorists killed by the Pakistani security forces.
Earlier, a Pentagon report said that $7.12 billion worth of defense equipment was left behind in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal on August 30, 2021. The US provided a total of 427,300 combat weapons to the Afghan military, of which 300,000 were left at the time of withdrawal.
The TTP used these US weapons to carry out terrorist activities in Peshawar, Lakki Marwat, Bannu, and Dera Ismail Khan and targeted police personnel.
The Taliban regime has always denied the charge.—Web Desk
