MOSCOW, February 11. /TASS/. The weapons left behind by the US-led coalition in Afghanistan may end up in terrorists’ hands, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu warned on Friday.
"I would also like to remind you of the sad experience of beefing up certain states with weapons. Let me recall that weapons worth almost 80 billion [US dollars] were delivered to Afghanistan not so long ago. If we speak about Javelin anti-tank missile systems, more than 100 of them were left behind in Afghanistan. If we speak about man-portable air defense systems intended to fight aircraft, more than 150 of them were abandoned there," Shoigu said at a meeting with UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace on Friday.
As the Russian defense chief stressed, "all these weapons undoubtedly pose a threat today, considering that the number of fighters of the ISIL [the former name of the Islamic State terrorist organization outlawed in Russia] has doubled in Afghanistan lately."
"And it is hard for us to understand where and what hands these weapons may fall into. We would not want this topic to be put on the back burner, like the issue of refugees from Afghanistan and the issue of drug trafficking from that country," Shoigu pointed out.