Two Explosions Rock Afghanistan, Taliban Hold Military Parade In Kabul

Illustration of a convoy of Taliban troops. (Twitter/@Badri313Unit1)

JAKARTA - Taliban forces staged a military parade on Sunday, demonstrating their transformation into the country's military, after Afghanistan was rocked by explosions on Friday and Saturday.

The Taliban hold a military parade in Kabul, Afghanistan using American-made armored vehicles confiscated from soldiers of the previous administration, as well as Russian helicopters in a display showing their ongoing transformation from insurgent forces into standing soldiers.

More than two decades of fighting as insurgents, the Taliban has managed to control various types of main weapons systems (Alutsista) left by the Western-backed government, to modernize their forces.

The march was linked to the graduation of 250 newly trained soldiers, Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatullah Kwarazmi said, citing Reuters November 15.

The parade involved dozens of US-made M117 armored security vehicles speeding slowly down Kabul's main roads with MI-17 helicopters patrolling above them. Many soldiers carried American-made M4 assault rifles.

Most of the weapons and equipment currently in use by Taliban forces are those supplied by Washington to the US-backed government in Kabul in an effort to build an Afghan national force capable of fighting the Taliban.

The force collapsed by fleeing Afghan President Ashraf Ghani from Afghanistan, leaving the Taliban to take over key military assets.

Taliban officials said pilots, mechanics, and other specialists from the former Afghan National Army would be integrated into the new force, which would also start wearing conventional military uniforms replacing the traditional Afghan clothing worn by their fighters.

According to a report late last year by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar), the US government transferred to the Afghan government more than US$28 billion in defense equipment and services, including weapons, ammunition, vehicles, night vision devices, aircraft, and surveillance systems, from 2002 to 2017.

Some of the planes were flown to neighboring Central Asia fleeing Afghan forces, but the Taliban inherited other planes. It remains unclear how many are operating.

As US troops departed, they destroyed more than 70 aircraft, dozens of armored vehicles and disabled air defenses before flying out of Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport following a chaotic evacuation operation.

To note, this parade was held after two explosions occurred in Afghanistan on Friday and Saturday last week. The first explosion occurred as a result of a bomb at a mosque in Nangarhar Province, Eastern Afghanistan on Friday.

The next day, a magnetic bomb mounted on a passenger minivan exploded in a predominantly Shiite area of the Afghan capital, Kabul. A Taliban official, who declined to be named, said six people were killed and at least seven injured in the blast in the Dasht-e Barchi area of western Kabul. The area is mostly inhabited by ethnic Hazara Shiites who have been the target of repeated attacks by the ISIS militant group.