Seized weapons at an empty bazaar during a military operation against Taliban militants in Miranshah in North Waziristan, Pakistan, July 9, 2014. A U.S. report found that from 2010 to 2013, Afghan forces received more than 112,000 small arms than needed. Aamir Quershi / AFP / Getty Images

A new report raises concerns that weapons supplied by the United States to Afghanistan could wind up in the hands of the Taliban and other groups seeking to destabilize the Afghan government. Released Monday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a government office that oversees U.S. reconstruction spending, the report found that not only do Afghan security forces have an oversupply of weapons and equipment but also that they have serious problems keeping track of those weapons. In its audit of weapon shipments from the United States to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) from 2010 to 2013, SIGAR found that the ANSF received more than 112,000 small arms beyond what was required and that “the scheduled reduction in ANSF personnel by 2017 is likely to result in even greater excess weapons.” The number of Afghan troops is expected to decline from 352,000 to 228,500 by 2017. “Given the Afghan government’s limited ability to account for or properly dispose of weapons, there is a real potential for these weapons to fall into the hands of insurgents,” the audit concluded.

Shoddy record-keeping

The report placed much of the blame on the myriad systems used to track the shipment and receipt of weapons and equipment by both the Afghans and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). The DOD uses one system to track the shipment of weapons to Afghanistan and another to track their receipt, leading to errors and discrepancies, SIGAR said. When SIGAR compared the two systems, the information often didn’t match, and some records were duplicated, while others were incomplete. The DOD was not in compliance with its internal operating procedures, SIGAR found. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2010 requires the DOD to include detailed information on the origin, shipping and distribution of small arms as well as the registration of their serial numbers. On the Afghan side, the Afghan National Army uses an inventory management system that U.S. military officials said was unreliable because the data were often entered incorrectly. The Afghan National Police, meanwhile, uses handwritten records and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to maintain its inventory records, making the prospect of a unified electronically accessible system even more difficult. The oversupply of weapons could play into the hands of fighters seeking to destabilize Afghanistan. The Afghan National Army has at least 83,000 more AK-47 automatic rifles than it needs, SIGAR found, and in the report DOD officials are quoted as saying, “They do not currently have the authority to recapture or remove weapons that have already been provided to the ANSF.” SIGAR recommended that the DOD reconcile its tracking systems within six months, complete an inventory check with the ANSF of the weapons transferred “and develop a plan that addresses the potential future excess of small arms if the ANSF force strength is reduced.” The report suggests the agency consider destroying weapons rather than risk their being sold on the black market or to militias. The DOD told SIGAR that it only “partially concurred” with recommendations that the Afghans conduct their own inventory checks and also destroy or recover excess weapons, saying the DOD doesn’t have that authority. “However, U.S. forces in Afghanistan can assist the Afghans with determining whether they have excess weapons and help identify disposition options,” the DOD said.

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