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White House: 'Certainly a fair amount' of U.S. weaponry is in the hands of the Taliban

"We don't have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport," National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Published: August 17, 2021 2:48pm

Updated: August 17, 2021 3:58pm

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that "certainly a fair amount" of U.S. weaponry that was in the possession of Afghan Security Forces has now fallen in the hands of the Taliban.

Sullivan spoke at a White House press briefing two days after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and was asked whether the Biden administration knows where the billions of dollars in weaponry that the U.S. supplied the Afghan government will ultimately end up.

"We don't have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban, and obviously we don't have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport," Sullivan said.

U.S. forces entered Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and over the past 20 years trained and equipped Afghan forces in preparation for American troops' eventual departure. However, the Afghan forces posed little, if any, opposition to the Taliban as U.S.forces departed under President Biden's recent orders. 

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