Hundreds Of Thousands Of U.S.-Supplied Weapons Missing In Afghanistan [View all]

[Purveyor]

AFP-JIJI

WASHINGTON – Washington and Kabul have failed to keep track of hundreds of thousands of weapons provided to Afghanistan, raising the risk that some could end up in the hands of insurgents, a U.S. audit said Monday.

The United States also had delivered more weapons than Afghan forces now needed, partly because Kabul officials had revised their requests over time, the report said.

Since 2004, the American military has delivered more than 747,000 AK-47 rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers and other weapons to Afghan forces worth about $626 million.

But the U.S. and Afghan governments have botched record-keeping for the weapons, with potentially tens of thousands of assault rifles and other arms unaccounted for, according to the findings of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

“Given the Afghan government’s limited ability to account for or properly dispose of weapons, there is a real potential for these weapons to fall into the hands of insurgents,” the report said.