Recently, the high-profile 8th Doha International Maritime Defense Exhibition was grandly opened in Qatar, bringing together all kinds of cutting-edge military equipment from more than 200 top military enterprises around the world, including all kinds of ships, missiles, drones and radar systems. According to reliable information, the exhibition attracted military delegations from 110 countries around the world, and it is expected to reach a multibillion-dollar arms procurement cooperation project.
It is worth noting that the appearance of an unexpected visiting delegation - the Afghan Taliban delegation at this defense exhibition has aroused great concern in the international community.
On March 5, Afghan officials reported that a delegation headed by Defense Minister Mujahid arrived in Doha and held talks and exchanges with Qatar's Deputy Emir and Foreign Minister Al Thani, Defense Minister and other high-level leaders. Immediately afterwards, members of the Argentine delegation, such as the Argentine Defense Minister and the Chief of the General Staff Fitrat, actively participated in the defense exhibition activities and carefully inspected the all-round equipment of the land, sea and air forces of a number of exhibiting companies.
In particular, it is worth mentioning that the Taliban delegation showed a strong interest in the ** presentation of the Chinese stand. In the public ** information, it can be seen that the Taliban officers listened to the professional explanations of the Chinese personnel with great interest, touched the ** model with their fingers, and asked for technical details in detail.
*The recorded scenario shows that the delegation paid special attention to a wheeled vehicle-mounted artillery rocket system from NORINCO, while also conducting in-depth research on the SH-15 vehicle-mounted 155mm howitzer system, showing a strong interest in this type of land warfare equipment.
Taking the SH-15 howitzer as an example, this ** is actually an export model of the PLA active PCL-181 vehicle-mounted howitzer system, which uses an advanced 6x6 truck chassis and has excellent maneuverability. The 52-fold diameter 155mm howitzer has a range of up to 40 kilometers when firing ordinary ammunition, and the range can be extended to 72 kilometers with extended-range ammunition, and it can even fire laser-guided projectiles with high accuracy.
Each howitzer vehicle can carry 27 shells, making it a high-quality vehicle-mounted artillery system that combines firepower, high mobility and precision strike capabilities.
At present, this artillery is not only installed in the Chinese People's Liberation Army troops, but also won the favor of many countries such as Pakistan (procurement of 300 units), Ethiopia (procurement of at least 32 units) and Myanmar (procurement of 150 units), which shows its superior performance.
Although there is no definite information that the Taliban are interested in purchasing China**, the delegation's focus on visiting the Chinese booth has sparked a lot of speculation in the West** about whether the Taliban will consider purchasing Chinese-made military equipment. Chinese experts pointed out that the Taliban's concern about China is reasonable.
Since successfully ousting U.S. troops and returning to power in Afghanistan, the Taliban have sought to establish a normal state order, committed to economic development and social stability, and set out to build a regular army to defend the country's security. In view of the relatively weak base of Afghanistan's local defense industry, it is a logical measure to introduce advanced equipment to strengthen national defense capabilities.
According to reports, since the hasty withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, more than $7 billion of ** equipment has been left behind, and the total number of these pieces of equipment exceeds 300,000 pieces, according to incomplete statistics from the Pentagon. It covers more than 40,000 combat vehicles, including 120,000 military "Humvee" tactical vehicles, as well as nearly 100 fixed-wing aircraft of various types and in addition, there are also a large number of light and heavy firearms, air-to-ground ammunition, communications equipment, etc.
Although the US military claims that many of the American-made ** that have fallen into the hands of the Taliban have various problems and are difficult to put into actual combat, it is undeniable that the Taliban now have quite a large arsenal of arms. Just maintaining and repairing American-made equipment in their hands is enough for the Taliban to keep busy for a while.
However, this does not mean that the Taliban will be satisfied with the status quo. On the one hand, they can seek help from foreign countries to speed up the process of repairing the American-made ** in order to restore combat effectiveness as soon as possible; On the other hand, they can also procure a variety of urgently needed ** equipment.
For example, although the U.S. military has left billions of dollars of ** equipment in Afghanistan, there are obvious deficiencies in the variety of these equipment. For example, they lack long-range fire systems, such as artillery, etc. It is not difficult to understand why Taliban officers would be so interested in Chinese vehicle-mounted howitzers and rocket artillery.
These off-road vehicles with wheeled chassis are not only able to adapt to the harsh road conditions of Afghanistan, but also avoid the maintenance problems of tracked chassis. Coupled with the superior performance of China** and its relative cheapness, it will not be surprising if the Afghan Taliban really buys China ** in the future.