US-Issued Ammo Found on Afghan Insurgents

The resilience of Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency may be partly due to supplies from the US, according to a New York Times investigation. The majority of 30 rifle magazines recently found on dead insurgents were the same as those issued to the Afghan military by the US, strongly suggesting that Pentagon-supplied ammo is leaking from Afghan security forces to be used against American troops.

Military officials and arms experts fear that poor inventory control on the vast amount of weaponry sent to Afghanistan since 2001 means much of it could have been diverted by lax or corrupt officials. A US commander said the ammo could have come from battlefield losses, and that accountability for weapons issued to Afghan forces is a high priority.  (More ammunition stories.)