The Taliban Are Effectively Using U.S. Night-Vision Goggles In Their Attacks Against Afghan Security Forces

U.S. soldiers are seen through night-vision goggles in the Korengal Valley in 2009. With night-vision devices now in Taliban hands, American commanders may opt to lift restrictions on supplying them to Afghan government forces. (TYLER HICKS/NYT)

Seattle Times/New York Times: The Taliban Have Gone High-Tech. That Poses a Dilemma for the U.S.

U.S. commanders have been forced to consider loosening restrictions on access to night-vision devices for Afghan forces, even though they fear the equipment could be lost or sold underground

WASHINGTON — Once described as an ill-equipped band of insurgents, the Taliban are increasingly attacking security forces across Afghanistan using night-vision goggles and lasers that U.S. military officials said were either stolen from Afghan and international troops or bought on the black market.

The devices allow the Taliban to maneuver on forces under the cover of darkness as they track the whirling blades of coalition helicopters, the infrared lasers on American rifles, or even the bedtime movements of local police officers.

With this new battlefield capability, the Taliban more than doubled nighttime attacks from 2014 to 2017, according to one U.S. military official who described internal Pentagon data on condition of anonymity. The number of Afghans who were wounded or killed during nighttime attacks during that period nearly tripled.

That has forced American commanders to rethink the limited access they give Afghan security forces to the night-vision devices. Commanders worry that denying the expensive equipment to those forces puts them at a technological disadvantage, with potentially lethal consequences.

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WNU editor: Aside from losing this equipment on the battlefield and/or Afghan soldiers selling it to the Taliban, you can also buy this equipment on the black market .... something that I am sure that a lot of arms dealers are happy to sell.