Click to see full-size image. Source: t.me/army_ir
On September 1, Iranian sources shared photos showing at least ten US-made Humvee armored vehicles being transported on the Semnan-Garmsar highway in northern Iran.
The armored vehicles, which bear the markings of the now-defunct Afghan government forces, were loaded on the back of trucks with Iranian military license plates. The convoy reportedly took off from the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad.
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: t.me/army_ir
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: t.me/army_ir
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: t.me/army_ir
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: t.me/army_ir
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: t.me/army_ir
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: t.me/army_ir
Some observers speculated that the Humvees were taken from Afghan troops who fled from western Afghanistan to Iran in order to avoid being captured by the Taliban between July and August.
The Telegram channel speculates that Iran either bought the vehicles from the Taliban or just took them from Afghan soldiers that drove across the border last month in an attempt to flee the Taliban.https://t.co/06Lq8unB6o
— Kian Sharifi (@KianSharifi) September 1, 2021
Nevertheless, the Iranian “Military Articles” channel on Telegram, which was among the first to share photos of the Humvees, claimed that they were “bought” from the Taliban.
These armored vehicles will likely enter service with the Iranian Armed Forces, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or be sent to Tehran’s allies in the Middle East.
While taking over Afghanistan in the last few months, Taliban fighters seized billions-worth of military equipment, including hundreds of Humvees, which were supplied by the US to Afghan government forces.
According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the US supplied a total of 1,178 Humvee armored vehicles to Afghan government forces with a cost of $275,580,902 between April of 2020 and July of 2021 only.
#UPDATE A Black Hawk helicopter flew circles over the Taliban's spiritual heartland of #Kandahar in southern Afghanistan Wednesday while below fighters stood on captured Humvees as the Islamists paraded their plundered US military hardware https://t.co/KV9tTZ9NcH pic.twitter.com/qntnQDooyM
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) September 1, 2021
Most of the equipment supplied by the US to Afghan government forces fell into the hands of the Taliban, the de-facto rulers of Afghanistan. The remaining equipment ended up in a way or another in Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, mainly Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran, or with the Afghan resistance in the Panjshir Valley.
US forces and their Afghan proxies sabotaged or destroys loads of military equipment, including aircraft, in Kabul airport before completing their withdrawal on August 30.
