The departing troops destroyed more than 70 aircraft and dozens of armoured vehicles, Reuters reported. US military officials, on the other hand, said they were not concerned by the images. They've learned from the ground and they are very good technically," he added.Pictures and videos of the Taliban entering the airport in US-supplied military fatigues, some with rifles and some trying out the night vision goggles and analysing military helicopters went viral on social media after the last US troops flew out of Afghanistan.
"The war they are fighting is not the same as the one their parents fought against the Soviets.
"We've seen a remarkable professionalisation of the Taliban since the middle of the 2000s," he told AFP. Gilles Dorronsoro, an expert on Afghanistan at the Sorbonne University in Paris, said the emergence of the new Taliban commandoes was part of a larger trend. "There is a strong likelihood of Pakistan having provided at least a vestige of training to the unit," said Henman from Janes, who specialises in terrorism and insurgencies. They have also long been suspected of links with the Pakistani military establishment - US Admiral Mike Mullen described them as a "veritable arm" of Islamabad's intelligence in 2011. Mainly based in eastern Afghanistan - with alleged bases across the border in Pakistan's northwest - the group has become more visible in the Taliban leadership in recent years. In previous days, the unit has been in charge of security outside Kabul international airport, bringing them nearly face-to-face with American troops inside who are overseeing the airlift of thousands of civilians.īadri 313 is also seen as having benefited from training from the Haqqani network, Afghanistan's most ruthless and feared militant group which has been responsible for multiple suicide attacks on civilian targets. The US in effect armed the Taliban army," he added. "When they began to overrun the Afghan forces, they progressively integrated Western supplies. "There is certainly a degree of propaganda, but we saw during the final offensive since May that the Taliban special forces have been critical in the taking over of Afghanistan," said Bill Roggio, managing editor of the US-based Long War Journal. The amount of equipment at their disposal is unclear, but multiple pictures online show jubilant Taliban fighters posing with captured armoured Humvees, aircraft and weapons abandoned by the defeated US-equipped Afghan national army.Įxperts say the most sophisticated equipment, especially the helicopters, will be difficult to operate and near-impossible to maintain. Named after the battle of Badr 1,400 years ago, when the Prophet Mohammed supposedly vanquished his enemies with only 313 soldiers, the Taliban unit could number up to several thousand men, experts say. Rather than a battered Russian-designed Kalashnikov rifle slung over their shoulder, the men of Badri 313 hold new US-made rifles such as the M4, sometimes with night-vision goggles and advanced gunsights.īadri 313 "likely represents some of the best trained and equipped fighters within the Taliban more broadly, although as you would expect there is a degree of sensationalising in propaganda coverage of the unit by the group," Matt Henman from the Janes defence consultancy told AFP.Ī Western weapons expert who writes anonymously on Twitter under the pseudonym of Calibre Obscura said the unit would be no match for Western special forces, or those of India or Pakistan.īut "they are more effective than normal Taliban and certainly more than standard Afghan national army troops from a couple of weeks ago," he told AFP.
The soldiers are shown in uniforms, boots, balaclavas and body armour similar to those worn by special forces around the world - and unlike the shalwar kameez, turban and sandals of the traditional Taliban fighter. Pictures and videos of fighters in the so-called "Badri 313" unit have been posted online for propaganda purposes to underline how the Taliban have better equipped and trained men at their disposal than in the past, experts say. The Islamist group has been showing off its own "special forces" on social media, soldiers in new uniforms equipped with looted American equipment who contrast sharply with the image of the usual Afghan insurgent. The Taliban figures in uniforms are seen raising their black-and-white flag. The Taliban has mocked the US by recreating the famous picture of American soldiers raising the Stars and Stripes after invading the Japanese island of Iwo Jima in 1945 during the Second World War.
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