Maggie's Farm

American Military Equipment Delivered To Iran

A convoy of US military vehicles provided to Afghan forces has been filmed heading for Tehran having been handed over to the Iranian authorities.

The loss of the military equipment to Iran, America’s arch-foe in the Middle East, is a further embarrassment to the Pentagon after the Taliban were seen parading in Kabul in front of captured US-supplied vehicles.

The convoy to Iran included Humvees and “MRAPs”, light armoured vehicles specially protected against mines. The social media channel that first showed the film, and specialises in Iranian military affairs, said that the Iranians had also taken possession of American tanks.

The US provided more than 22,000 Humvees to the Afghan security forces, along with almost 1,000 MRAPs and more than 50,000 other vehicles.

In a further blow to President Biden’s insistence that the withdrawal was a success, a senior diplomatic official has admitted that the US failed to get the majority of Afghans who had applied for resettlement out of the country.

The White House said early last month that about 20,000 Afghans were seeking a new life in the US through a special visa scheme, meaning more than 100,000 people after their families were included. Although the total of those evacuated in 778 US and other international flights was put at 124,334 by the Pentagon, including almost 6,000 US citizens, the slow visa process meant that many applicants did not have the required paperwork or were unable to get to Kabul airport.

“I would say it’s the majority of them,” said a State Department official, who did not give numbers. “Everybody who lived it is haunted by the choices we had to make and by the people we were not able to help depart."

Among an estimated 100 to 200 US citizens who wanted to leave but were left in Afghanistan were more than 30 Californian children who had travelled to the country to see relatives in the weeks before the Taliban seized power. Officials in three school districts said that they were in contact with families who feared they had been forgotten by the US government.