Amrullah Saleh, former Vice President of Afghanistan, has labelled the Taliban a covert proxy for Western intelligence agencies, particularly the United States, in an interview with India’s Deccan Herald published Wednesday.
Saleh cast doubt on US President Donald Trump’s pledge to recover American weapons from the Taliban, suggesting it may be a symbolic gesture rather than a substantive policy.
"I do not know if it is just one of those headline-media slogans or if it will be backed by real actions," Saleh said of Trump’s call to retrieve weapons valued at £5.5 billion ($7 billion). He speculated that Trump aims to "publicly ride the Taliban once to show that they are under control, and then the US will start to tap them, hug them, and feed them more than before.”
Saleh, a vocal critic of the Taliban, claimed that nearly 100,000 NATO and US weapons have vanished since the group’s 2021 takeover of Afghanistan. He said "We know their serial numbers and the location from which they went missing. The word ‘missing’ is strange. It can mean stolen, sold or simply sent to secret location for secret purposes."
Reports since the Taliban’s return to power suggest American arms are surfacing beyond Afghanistan’s borders. Pakistan has accused the Taliban of arming the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Baloch militants, who are using these weapons against Pakistani forces. Similar claims have emerged from India, with allegations of US-made arms appearing in Kashmir.
Pakistan has repeatedly pointed to Afghanistan as a sanctuary for the TTP, a charge the Taliban denies despite evidence of growing insurgent activity.
Saleh also critiqued India’s warming relations with the Taliban, accusing New Delhi of sidelining Afghan factions that favour a pluralistic system. He suggested India is engaging the Taliban to mitigate terrorism risks or subtly influence the group’s structure. However, he warned that the Taliban’s inherent nature makes them a destabilising force.
