United States and Afghan troops may be at risk of losing their nighttime advantage after the United Nations warned in a report that Taliban fighters were acquiring night vision goggles and sniper rifles.
Citing Afghan officials, the report said Taliban forces have at least one sniper rifle equipped with a night vision scope “for each unit of 10 to 16 Taliban fighters.” The Taliban’s acquisition of these devices has had a deteriorating effect on Afghan security forces on the battlefield.
“The Taliban have continued to undermine the morale of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces by carrying out nocturnal attacks against isolated checkpoints, aided by new supplies of night vision scopes and sniper rifles arriving into Taliban arsenals,” the report said. “This simple yet effective tactic has aided the Taliban’s battle for control of rural areas and is likely a key reason for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces ceding further ground to Taliban forces this year in an effort to consolidate government-held areas without taking excessive casualties in remote military outposts.”
The UN’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, which authored the report, said the night vision equipment “has proven to be a successful tactic in both gaining and holding territory, as well as being a catalyst for demoralizing the Afghan Forces at such checkpoints.”
“The UN report confirms what those of us who closely track Taliban propaganda can see in its photographs and videos,” Bill Roggio, a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who studies the Taliban, told the Washington Examiner. “The Taliban obtains a large share of the NVGs (night vision goggles) and scopes via raids on Afghan forces, including the elite Commandos. The Taliban routinely display the spoils of its raids in its propaganda.”
Taliban fighters have been found to use British and Russian-made night vision equipment, as well as models available on the commercial market. Some fighters have mounted night vision scopes on Russian-made Dragunov sniper rifles, giving them the ability to hit targets more than 800 yards away at night.
The report also said the Taliban has followed through on their threat to target senior Afghan security personnel since spring 2018. The most high-profile of these killings came in October 2018, when Taliban fighters assassinated Gen. Abdul Raziq, the head of Afghanistan’s premier intelligence agency, in an insider attack.
Roggio and his colleagues have assessed that 137 of Afghanistan’s districts are held by the government, while 65 are controlled by the Taliban. The remaining 196 are considered “contested.”
Peace talks between the U.S. and Taliban officials fell apart earlier this month when President Trump canceled a secret meeting at Camp David following a bombing in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Taliban leaders expressed interest last week in resuming negotiations due to concerns over the rising threat posed by the Islamic State’s offshoot in Afghanistan known as ISIS Khorasan.
