KABUL — President Trump accused the Biden administration of "totally botching" the withdrawal from Afghanistan. In response to questions about the equipment, Taliban Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi stated that the assets are no longer available for negotiation. "The hardware now belongs to the state of Afghanistan, and we are not in the business of doing transactions and deals on the assets of the state of Afghanistan," he said.

"The Americans did a lot of things. Americans killed a lot of people, destroyed the majority of the country. Should they not be paying for that first?" he said. The war in Afghanistan killed more than 2,400 U.S. service members and tens of thousands of Afghans.

Timeline

In August 2021, President Biden stated that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan was the right decision because "American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves." In September 2021, President Biden stated he was not going to extend the "forever war" or the "forever exit" from Afghanistan.

In 2023, the Biden White House released a 12-page summary of a classified review of the Afghanistan exit that largely blamed the Trump administration for the Doha Agreement. A State Department report released in 2023 faulted both the Trump and Biden administrations for "insufficient" planning surrounding the withdrawal from Afghanistan. A convoy of Taliban security personnel took part in a parade in front of the former US Embassy building in Kabul on August 15, 2026 as they celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Taliban government’s return to power. The Taliban controls Afghanistan five years after the U.S. withdrawal.

What's New

Additional reporting confirms that a convoy of Taliban security personnel took part in a parade in front of the former US Embassy building in Kabul on August 15, 2026 as they celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Taliban government’s return to power. The parade was led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interim interior minister who leads a powerful faction within the Taliban and is reported to be at odds with the ageing supreme leader Akhundzada in Kandahar.

Contextual details note that the Taliban ruled approximately 90% of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 before being overthrown by an American-led invasion after the September 11 attacks carried out by the Taliban's ally al-Qaeda. The Taliban is an Afghan islamist organization. The Taliban governs centrally under a supreme leader with unlimited power who issues fatwas serving both as law and religious instruction, and rejects the principle of democratic participation in its decision making.

Why It Matters

The parade marks five years of Taliban control following the U.S. withdrawal, showing the retention of billions of dollars in military hardware. Pentagon figures indicate approximately $7 billion in U.S. military hardware and weaponry fell into Taliban hands when the Afghan National Army collapsed.

The event reflects the ongoing political and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has restricted the rights of women and girls, including depriving them of the right to work and study. The conflict resulted in the deaths of more than 2,400 U.S. service members and tens of thousands of Afghans.