Since falling into the hands of the Taliban, some of the weapons have been seized from militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir in what experts say could be just the start of their global journey.
\nSRINAGAR, India \u2014 Weapons left behind by U.S. forces during the\u00a0withdrawal from Afghanistan\u00a0are surfacing in another conflict, further arming militants in the disputed\u00a0South Asian region of Kashmir\u00a0in what experts say could be just the start of the weapons\u2019 global journey.
\nAuthorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir tell NBC News that militants trying to annex the region for\u00a0Pakistan\u00a0are carrying M4s, M16s and other U.S.-made arms and ammunition that have rarely been seen in the 30-year conflict. A major reason, they say, is a regional flood of U.S.-funded weapons that fell into the hands of the Taliban when U.S.-led NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
\nMost of the weapons recovered so far, officials say, are from Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), both Pakistan-based militant groups that the U.S. designates as terrorist organizations. In a\u00a0Twitter post\u00a0last year, for example, police said they had seized an M4 carbine assault rifle after a gunfight that killed two militants from JeM.<\/p>\n
Militants from both groups had been sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside or train the Taliban before the U.S. withdrawal, said Lt. Col. Emron Musavi, an Indian army spokesperson in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.
\n\u201cIt can be safely assumed that they have access to the weapons left behind,\u201d he said.
\nGovernment officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan did not respond to requests for comment.
\nKashmir, a Himalayan region known for its beautiful landscapes, shares borders with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. A separatist insurgency in the part of Kashmir controlled by India has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1990s and been a constant source of tension between nuclear powers India and Pakistan.<\/p>\n
The year opened in violence as Kashmir police blamed militants for a Jan. 1 gunfire attack that killed four people in the southern village of Dhangri, followed by an explosion in the same area the next day that killed a 5-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. At least six people were injured on Jan. 21 in two explosions in the city of Jammu.
\nWhile the U.S.-made weapons are unlikely to shift the balance of power in the Kashmir conflict, they give the Taliban a sizable reservoir of combat power potentially available to those willing and able to purchase it, said Jonathan Schroden, director of the Countering Threats and Challenges Program at the Center for Naval Analyses, a research group based outside Washington.
\n\u201cWhen combined with the Taliban\u2019s need for money and extant smuggling networks, that reservoir poses a substantial threat to regional actors for years to come,\u201d he said.
\nA trove of weapons
\nMore than $7.1 billion in U.S.-funded military equipment was in the possession of the Afghan government when it fell to the Taliban in August 2021 amid the withdrawal, according to a\u00a0Defense Department report\u00a0published last August. Though more than half of it was ground vehicles, it also included more than 316,000 weapons worth almost $512 million, plus ammunition and other accessories.
\nWhile large numbers of small arms that had been transferred to Afghan forces most likely ended up in the hands of the Taliban, \u201cit\u2019s important to remember that nearly all weapons and equipment used by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan were either retrograded or destroyed prior to our withdrawal,\u201d Army Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, said in a statement.
\nThe Defense Department report also pointed out that the operational condition of the Afghan army\u2019s equipment was unknown.
\nQuestions around the weapons being used in Kashmir were raised in January 2022, when a video of militants brandishing what appeared to be American-made guns was shared widely on Indian social media. Though the origin of the weapons in such cases can be difficult to verify \u2014 some may be modified to look like U.S. weapons, while others may not have been manufactured in the U.S. \u2014 the Indian military says it has recovered at least seven that are authentic.
\n\u201cFrom the weapons and equipment that we recovered, we realized that there was a spillover of high-tech weapons, night-vision devices and equipment, which were left by the Americans in Afghanistan [and] were now finding their way toward this side,\u201d Maj. Gen. Ajay Chandpuria, an Indian army official, was quoted as saying by Indian media last year.
\nJammu and Kashmir Lt. Gov. Manoj Sinha said the government was aware of the issue and that measures were in place to combat the infiltration of U.S. weapons into Kashmir.
\n\u201cWe are monitoring the situation closely and have taken steps accordingly. Our police and army are on the job,\u201d Sinha, the region\u2019s top official, said on the sidelines of a news conference last year at his official residence in Srinagar.
\nKashmir police official Vijay Kumar also said authorities were fully capable of countering the militant threat.
\n\u201cOur forces are tracking down militants on a daily basis,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are constantly upgrading our equipment and have the latest weaponry at our disposal.\u201d
\nThe militant groups JeM and LeT could be buying U.S. weapons from the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the United Nations says both groups have bases, or through smugglers in Pakistan, said Ajai Sahni, an author on counterterrorism who serves as executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, a think tank in New Delhi.
\nMilitants will struggle to get the upper hand, however, without more advanced weapons that have greater firepower but are more difficult to smuggle into the region, Sahni said.
\nSchroden said that although he had not seen substantial reports of U.S.-made weapons left behind in Afghanistan appearing outside of Kashmir, it would not be surprising if they eventually began turning up farther away in places such as Yemen, Syria and parts of Africa.
\n\u201cI suspect there hasn\u2019t yet been enough time for these weapons to percolate out that far,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s also possible that the Taliban have held tightly to most of them thus far as part of their efforts to consolidate power and seek legitimization from the international community.\u201d
\nBeyond weapons, the Taliban\u2019s victory in Afghanistan gave an ideological boost to radical militants in Kashmir and elsewhere, said Ahmad Shuja Jamal, a former Afghan civil servant living in exile in Australia.
\nSuch militants, he said, \u201cnow see in clear terms the political dividends of long-term violence.\u201d<\/p>\n