Loitering lethal

Abandoned weapons in Afghanistan are now threatening peace and security across the horizon. Credible reports and recent incidents, such as the Jaffar Express abduction near Quetta, have come to confirm the fear that lethal weapons once used by US forces are now at large, and have mostly fallen in the hands of non-state actors and crime barons.

It is estimated that more than a million pieces of weaponry and sophisticated military hardware went unaccounted for as the Biden administration decamped the war-weary Southwest Asian state in haste. And a BBC report claims that around half of them have been lost, sold or smuggled to militant groups.

The Afghan Taliban are on record telling a UN conference in Doha that most of the weapons have gone missing, giving credence to independent claims that the same were sold in black market by gangsters through social media outreach. If so, this is an extreme security failure and is in need of being checked through exercises of damage control.

It is also a given that terrorism has increased manifold in the region since August 2021, and the dispensation in Kabul has not been able to check rogue elements on its soil. The regrouping of ISSK, Al Qaeda, TTP, BLA, Majeed Brigade, etc and their nefarious operations on both sides of the divide have a connection with access to heavy weapons.

Likewise, the sneaking out of these weapons to the Middle East, especially to the Houthis and the disgruntled elements in Syria and Iraq cannot be ruled out either.

This is where Washington should have come up with proactive measures by pooling synergies of the regional states in checkmating terror outfits. A mere admission from President Trump that he will reclaim lost weapons to the tune of $85 billion in Afghanistan is not enough and must be backed up with a choreographed strategy.

Afghanistan today is tantamount to a powder-keg, and the loitering lethal cannot be left in this state of inertia. It threatens more than a billion people in the region, and widespread revulsion in the Middle East and beyond. These instruments of death and destruction must be accounted for now.