Massive ammunition depot found in Afghan capital Kabul

ISLAMABAD

A massive ammunition depot was found in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, the Taliban claimed on Tuesday.

Khalid Zadran, a spokesman for Kabul police, said that a huge cache of heavy and light weapons and ammunition was recovered during the construction of a road in Kabul.

An old weapons depot was discovered during the construction of a road in Kabul city, Zadran wrote on X.

He added that thousands of light weapons, bullets, rocket rounds, and pressure mines were recovered from the site.

Afghanistan remained a battleground for decades since the Soviet invasion in 1979 and later infighting between rival groups in Afghanistan.

In 2001, the US forces invaded Kabul, aiming to eradicate the al-Qaeda terrorist network, capture its leader Osama bin Laden, and oust the then-Taliban regime following the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the US. After the 20-year-long conflict, the US forces left Afghanistan in August 2021.

According to the US media, following the withdrawal from Kabul in 2021, the US forces left behind over $7 billion of military equipment in Afghanistan, including aircraft, air-to-ground munitions, military vehicles, weapons, communications equipment, and other materials.

“The US gave a total of $18.6 billion of equipment to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) from 2005 to August 2021,” CNN reported, citing a Congressionally-mandated report from the US Department of Defense submitted last year.