Taliban to Trump: US weapons now belong to Afghanistan and we will not return them - Sarmad

The Taliban government has once again rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands to return American equipment and weapons left in Afghanistan following the collapse of the previous government in 2021, asserting that they have become property of the Afghan state.

Abdul Qahar Baluchi, spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told CBS News in an interview that the military equipment has become “assets of the Afghan state, and we are not engaged in transactions or deals concerning state assets.”

When a CBS reporter asked whether American taxpayers had paid for the equipment, Baluchi responded that the United States had killed many people and destroyed large parts of Afghanistan during the war, questioning whether Washington should “pay for that first.”

U.S. Department of Defense figures indicate that U.S.-funded equipment and weapons valued at approximately $7 billion were held by the former Afghan forces and fell into Taliban hands in August 2021.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has reiterated his demand to recover the equipment, previously linking the continuation of U.S. aid to Afghanistan to its return. Speaking on the eve of his inauguration in January 2025, he said, “We want to get our military equipment back.”