Price of karma.

"Half a million weapons obtained by the Taliban in Afghanistan have been lost, sold or smuggled to militant groups, sources have told the BBC - with the UN believing that some have fallen into the hands of al-Qaeda affiliates." "In a report in February, the UN stated that al-Qaeda affiliates, including Tehreek-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and Yemen's Ansarullah movement, were accessing Taliban captured weapons or buying them on the black market." The TTP, "strives to remove the Pakistani Government from Pashtun tribal lands in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa." Since 2018, the TTP "has focused most of its attacks on Pakistani security forces although it also attacks US targets..,government officials, politicians." dni.gov. In 2012, "The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistan security services, according to a secret Nato report." "A Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman called the accusations 'ridiculous'." BBC.  In a chaotic and cowardly confusion, US forces fled from Afghanistan in August 2021, after "a 20-year war which cost the country $2 trillion and nearly 2,500 US lives" (Dawn), leaving behind $7 billion worth of weapons. "According to a 2022 Department of Defense report, 78 aircraft, 40,000 military vehicles and more than 300,000 weapons were some of what was left behind." CBS. At least the aircraft could have been flown to some neighboring country and then to the US. Shows that it was not a "withdrawal" but a rout in blind panic. President Donald Trump has demanded a return of the weapons but "The Taliban in Afghanistan are adamant over decision for not returning the military equipment that the US military left," and "insisted they require more arms, ammunition, advance weapons to fight ISIS-K, Islamic State Khorasan instead of giving the weapons back." HT. While the Taliban is well armed, "Air Chief Marshall AP Singh has persistently and firmly drawn attention to the Indian Air Force's alarming numbers and technology gaps with its rivals." "Our 10 years' defence imports are less than half of our gold imports in an average year and, more tellingly, less than 5% of the import bill of Reliance Industries and about 8% of the Indian Oil Corporation," wrote Shekhar Gupta. China has already gone to another level. "The Chinese military and Chinese defense industry have been pursuing significant investments in robotics, swarming, and other applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)." Brookings. In India, we like to talk. Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy expressed deep skepticism over the way AI is being misrepresented in India." He warned that "what many companies parade as AI are nothing more than 'silly old programs' dressed up in hype." BT. First Pakistan, and then the US, armed the Taliban. Now it's coming back to them. Karma and result.