KABUL — Weeks after taking control of the country from the occupyingforeign forces, the Afghan Taliban are now working to put together theirown air force.
According to a short documentary made by Al Jazeera after obtaining accessto the hangar where a team of experts is working to refurbish the destroyedmilitary hardware left behind by the foreign forces, the Taliban haverecruited a team of engineers, aviation experts and technicians torefurbish this equipment.
The equipment left behind by the US troops at the time of their departurein August this year can be seen row after row scattered all over anairfield also having many destroyed helicopters. There are even holes inthe fuselage in the bodies. The ones that are intact, if you come insidethem and enter the cockpit, there is nothing inside but shattered glass anddestroyed equipment.
Engineers say they have already managed to repair dozens of aircraft.
“Like this helicopter, we completed the hard lines, but some lines may bemissing so the jet did not start. We will try to solve that maybe in twodays,” says Captain Shuja Mohammad, aviation engineer.
Until a few months ago, Major Farid Ahmad was hunting down the Talibantargets, but now he is part of the elite squad of this new air force beingbuilt by the Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers.
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“When the Taliban entered Kabul, the first guarantee they gave was generalamnesty. I am sure they will stand by their words. If we all left, whowould have brought this airfield back to life? It doesn’t matter to me whoruns the country, our duty is to protect the borders and protect the assetsand resources of Afghanistan,” says Major Farid Ahmad, a pilot.
The equipment held by the Taliban includes dozens of aircraft, hundreds ofarmoured vehicles and tens of thousands of guns.
Analysts say the Taliban have an arsenal comparable to some Central Asianstates, but its technical capabilities are under question.
According to Dr Jonathan Schroden from CAN’s Countering Threats andChallenges Programme, “The maintenance gets harder, the more complicated itbecomes. And so the real question is not so much the Taliban can get thesethings off the ground one time or even a small number of times, theyquestion is for how long could they sustain those airframes without beingable to do some of the higher level maintenance that they require.”
