New Briefing Paper on NATO-pattern weapons for sale in arms markets in Afghanistan and Pakistan
More than three years after the Taliban’s takeover and its seizure of the previous regime’s weapons stockpiles, the de facto authorities have taken steps to exert control over arms and ammunition in the hands of rank-and-file fighters, civilians, and private businesses. Yet despite the recent legal restrictions and their enforcement efforts, informal arms commerce and trafficking continue, and involves both older weapons as well as materiel likely sourced from the equipment that had been delivered to the former Afghan National Defence and Security Forces.
Open Markets: Documenting Arms Availability in Afghanistan under the Taliban—a new Briefing Paper from the Small Arms Survey’s Afghanistan project—reviews field investigations conducted from 2022 to 2024 into the availability and prices of small arms, light weapons, accessories, and ammunition at informal markets in the Afghanistan–Pakistan border areas, alongside qualitative research into arms proliferation dynamics.
Read: Open Markets: Documenting Arms Availability in Afghanistan under the Taliban
For more, check out:
- Selective Approval: Taliban Weapons Controls in Afghanistan’s Balkh Province (May 2024)—a Situation Update that examines the latest findings from fieldwork conducted in the province in November 2023
- Calculable Losses? Arms Transfers to Afghanistan 2002–21 (January 2024)—a Briefing Paper that analyses the publicly available data on arms exports to Afghanistan, identifies gaps in this data, and provides previously unreleased data obtained from the US government
- Arms Smuggling Dynamics under Taliban Rule (June 2023)—a Situation Update co-authored by the Small Arms Survey and Afghan Peace Watch that reports on 2023 field investigations in the country, and the risks for arms proliferation under the Taliban.
- Taliban Arms Management Practices (June 2023)—a Situation Update co-authored by the Small Arms Survey and the Centre on Armed Groups
- The Small Arms Survey’s Afghanistan project page
- Afghanistan outputs in our Resource Library
Other news from the Survey:
- New update to the unplanned explosions at munitions sites database
- New HSBA Briefing Paper on the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan
- New Survey how-to guides on meaningful participation and gender-responsive action plans
- New Situation Update on civilian firearm possession in Ukraine
- New HSBA Situation Update on the UPDF in Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan