THE Taliban say that the United States ‘deliberately’ destroyed military equipment, including helicopters and planes left behind in Kabul as the country withdrew its troops to wrap up evacuation on Tuesday.

Taliban Leader Anas Haqqani made this known on Wednesday in a statement.

President Joe Biden has been criticised for the way the pull-out of Afghanistan was carried out and for leaving millions of dollars worth of military equipment, including around 27 Humvees and 73 aircrafts, as American troops evacuated Kabul international airport.

Yet he described the evacuation from Kabul as an ‘extraordinary success,’ praising the military for their work hours after the Taliban’s top spokesman toured the Kabul airport.

“We owe them and their families a debt of gratitude we can never repay, but we should never, ever, ever forget.”

Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby added that the administration was not ‘overly concerned’ about images of the Taliban walking around the equipment left in Kabul as they had been completely demilitarised, rendering them unusable.

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“They can’t fly them,” Kirby told the CNN. “All the aircraft, all the ground vehicles. The only thing we left operable are a couple of fire trucks and some forklifts so that the airport itself can remain more operational going forward,” he said.

Corroborating this position, Central Command Head General Kenneth McKenzie explained, “It’s a complex procedure and time-intensive procedure to break down those systems. So we demilitarize those systems so that they’ll never be used again.”

Meanwhile, a technical team has arrived in Kabul from Qatar to make Kabul Airport operational and the government has announced that domestic flights would commence on Friday.