The United States originally armed the Taliban when it fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Today, though we may now be its enemy, the Taliban still has a way of getting its hands on our weapons, apparently: After discovering that the weapons on 17 or 30 insurgent corpses in Afghanistan were identical to weapons the U.S. had provided to the Afghan government, The New York Times reports that it is likely “that munitions procured by the Pentagon have leaked from Afghan forces for use against American troops.” The United States has failed to account for thousands of rifles issued to Afghan Security forces. “With only spotty American and Afghan controls on the vast inventory of weapons and ammunition sent into Afghanistan during an eight-year conflict, poor discipline and outright corruption among Afghan forces may have helped insurgents stay supplied.”
