Billions of dollars' worth of American military equipment and vehicles has been seized by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The militant group took control of the country last month as international forces were gearing up to end the 20-year-long war.
When they did this, they also assumed ownership of thousands of weapons, aircraft, Humvees, night-vision goggles and other impressive warfare technology.
It's sparked concern from people all around the world that the Taliban had become instantly more militarily advanced and that could pose a big threat.
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However, the US military has confirmed that all those fancy vehicles and helicopters would be utterly useless to them.
That's because troops deliberately 'demilitarised' them so that they couldn't be used by fighters who wanted to engage in warfare.
Marine General Frank McKenzie, commander of US Central Command, said they disabled roughly 70 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft before they left.
"They'll never be able to be operated by anyone. Most of them were non-mission capable to begin with," he said.
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He added that they waited until the last minute to disable Kabul airport's counter rocket, artillery and mortar system as they didn't want their troops to come under attack at the 11th hour.
Chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said they did leave some equipment operational, like fire trucks and forklifts, however that was only to help the airport in the months ahead.
"[The Taliban] can inspect all they want. They can look at them, they can walk around, but they can't fly them. They can't operate them," Kirby told CNN.
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"We made sure to demilitarise, to make unusable, all the gear that is at the airport - all the aircraft, all the ground vehicles."
A former UK special forces soldier has explained how the footage of Taliban fighters getting into aircraft could be from parts of Afghanistan outside of Kabul.
The ex-soldier, who returned to the region as a contractor, told Vice News: "The things captured at the other bases in Mazar and Kandahar, they fell before anyone could destroy them.
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"But in Kabul the Americans knew they'd be leaving and had plenty of time to make sure nothing ever worked again.
"They gave us [in the SAS] an entire course on how to make sure abandoned gear can never be used again and the American lads have the exact same course.
"If anything captured at Kabul ever flies again I'd be truly shocked."
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: News
