THE peril Pakistan has long warned about is now a reality! American weapons, left behind after the chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, are now in the hands of terrorists wreaking havoc across Pakistan’s western borders.
Sophisticated M4 and M16 rifles, night-vision goggles, drones and armored vehicles — once supplied to Afghan forces — are now being used by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) in cross-border attacks.
For years, Islamabad cautioned that the unchecked flow of weapons from Afghanistan would destabilize the region. Today, that fear has materialized. Militants operating from sanctuaries inside Afghanistan now possess military-grade firepower and are challenging Pakistan’s security forces in ways never seen before. This is not conjecture but a hard reality borne out of battlefield recoveries, intelligence intercepts and forensic weapon tracing. Pakistan’s security concerns are grounded in verifiable evidence, not speculation. Forensic tracing of captured militants and recovered weapons links US-origin arms and equipment to the arsenals now used by terrorist networks. This influx of advanced gear has created an asymmetric threat, forcing Pakistan to confront insurgents armed with near-parity weaponry.
The US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report underscores this policy failure. It reveals that billions of dollars’ worth of sophisticated equipment were abandoned without a retrieval plan, destabilizing the region and leaving Pakistan to face the consequences. Islamabad’s repeated assertions about cross-border sanctuaries have been validated by battlefield evidence and seizures, showing that militancy continues to thrive under Kabul’s permissive environment. What was once meant to stabilize Afghanistan has now turned into a windfall for transnational militants. Years of flawed Western policy and a hurried withdrawal created both a power vacuum and an arms stock. Pakistan’s call for accountability is not political posturing; it is a legitimate demand for responsibility in the face of tangible security threats.
Pakistan’s recent cross-border actions are not acts of aggression but a law-and-order response to direct threats. These measures are grounded in documented evidence, not rhetoric, as Pakistan seeks to neutralize launch pads used for attacks on its soldiers and civilians. When foreign soil becomes a staging ground for terrorism, self-defence becomes both a right and a necessity.
However, world has yet to treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves. The abandoned weapons problem is not a mere accounting anomaly; it is a live threat destabilizing an entire region. The SIGAR findings lay bare the scale of the issue and their corrosive effect on regional security. Pakistan’s stance is pragmatic, not provocative. The current crisis stems from external policy failures, abandoned weaponry and unchecked sanctuaries — not from Islamabad’s actions.
The path forward demands collective responsibility: international pressure on Kabul, arms inventory recovery and coordinated border security mechanisms. Ignoring this reality risks normalizing a black market in US weapons that will continue to fuel insurgency and instability. In the end, Pakistan’s warning stands vindicated — the US weapons has reached to the hands of terror. Unless the world acts decisively, the fallout of this oversight will not stop at Pakistan’s borders.
—The writer is an alumnus of QAU, MPhil scholar and a freelance columnist, based in Islamabad.
