As the Trump administration weighs how to resolve the longest war in U.S. history, a once ragged-band of Taliban extremists are getting their hands on technological weaponry to attack security forces in Afghanistan, as The New York Times reported Sunday morning.
The Taliban are increasingly stealing, or buying on the black market, tech like night-vision goggles, lasers, drones, and precision weapons, according to the report.
"It's going to be a problem, and it's going to change how we operate," retired Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, who led the Afghanistan war efforts under former President George W. Bush, told the Times.
Reports the Taliban was stealing the U.S.-provided technology from the Afghan troops were debunked by Gen. Dawlat Waziri to the Times, who said the American-provided tech has been "accounted for."
"No case of night vision sold by our soldiers to the Taliban has been reported," General Waziri told the Times.
With the enemy getting their hands on technology and the U.S. military hoping to prop up Afghanistan's own forces to self-police their country, there is talk the U.S. needs to equip the Afghan army with the equivalent technology the Taliban is stealing and employing in their insurgency.
A spokesman for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Capt. Tom Gresback, declined to specify which gear would be given to aid the fight against the Taliban, but told the Times the U.S. would equip Afghanistan's war efforts "with the resources necessary to promote security throughout Afghanistan."
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