It is “possible” that M4 rifles used by Pahalgam terrorists came from Afghanistan: Expert

London-based Australian journalist and Afghanistan expert Lynne ​O​’Donnell, who reported extensively from Afghanistan until she was detained and harassed by the Taliban in mid-2022, has said it is “possible” that the M4 rifles used by terrorists to attack tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir, originated in Afghanistan. She suggests the weapons may have reached Kashmir via the Pakistani Taliban, which she describes as a “puppet” of the Haqqani Network, a group with close ties to Pakistan’s notorious spy agency, the ISI.

O’Donnell, a former columnist for Foreign Policy who has covered conflicts across the Middle East and Central Asia, notes that weapons abandoned by Afghan forces during the Taliban’s rapid advance from Kandahar to Kabul in 2021 have since surfaced in several conflict zones, including Gaza and possibly Kashmir.

Following the Taliban’s capture of Kabul on 15 August 2021, numerous reports indicated that American-made arms, including M4 and M16 rifles worth billions of dollars, had fallen into Taliban hands. The Taliban reportedly began selling off these arms to various groups.

According to survivors and eyewitnesses of the Pahalgam massacre, the terrorists were armed with AK-47s as well as American-made M4 carbines.

While many critics blame the United States for the Taliban’s acquisition of such weaponry, O’Donnell disagrees. She argues that the US supplied these arms as part of efforts to train and equip the Afghan army during Operation Enduring Freedom, launched on 7 October 2001 as a response to the 9/11 attacks. The operation officially ended on 28 December 2014. O’Donnell describes blaming the US for the current proliferation of arms as a “disingenuous way of putting things,” noting that the intention had been to build a national army for Afghanistan.

A BBC report, citing an Afghan official, estimated that when the Taliban seized power in 2021, they gained control of approximately one million weapons and other military equipment—most of it funded by the US. Some American equipment was also reportedly left behind during the withdrawal.

The Taliban’s haul included not just small arms but also helicopters, night-vision devices, and other advanced military hardware. Several insiders, including former US Marine and best-selling author Elliot Ackerman, a highly decorated officer, had critically examined the American war on Afghanistan and the outcome. In his latest book titled The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan, Ackerman was blunt about the war he had fought. He wrote, “Carl von Clausewitz, the great nineteenth-century military theorist, famously said, ‘War is the continuation of politics by other means.’ President Biden’s announcement of a complete US withdrawal from Afghanistan set off a crisis of confidence among Afghans, one that precipitated a political collapse and, subsequently, a military collapse.”

Meanwhile, according to the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Haqqani Network was responsible for several of the most high-profile attacks during the Afghan conflict, including the 2011 assault on Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel and major suicide bombings against the Indian Embassy in 2008 and 2009. The ODNI also reported that in September 2011, the Haqqanis took part in a day-long assault on major targets in Kabul, including the US Embassy, ISAF headquarters, the Afghan Presidential Palace, and the headquarters of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security.

O’Donnell, who during her 2022 visit to Afghanistan was coerced into posting retractions of her reporting on the Taliban via Twitter, has not returned to the country since. Afghanistan has become increasingly hostile to women and journalists under Taliban rule.

The author of ​’High Tea in Mosul: The True Story of Two Englishwomen in War-torn Iraq​’, O’Donnell, who previously worked with AFP and the Associated Press, adds that following the official end of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2014, several corrupt Afghan officers were involved in selling military equipment to enrich themselves. O’Donnell also remarks that Pakistan seems largely unsympathetic to the plight of the innocent victims killed in the Pahalgam attack on 22 April.

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