China shares supposed video of Taliban using US military planes as toys
China has mocked the United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan by sharing footage that supposedly shows Taliban fighters turning abandoned US military planes into toys.
Chinese governmental official Lijian Zhao, the spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, tweeted the video Thursday.
“The graveyard of EMPIRES and their WAR MACHINES. Talibans have turned their planes into swings and toys,” Zhao tweeted alongside the video.
It wasn’t immediately clear where the footage was taken, or if it was filmed after US troops withdrew from Afghanistan.
The video shows what appears to be a group of Taliban fighters turning the wing of a military plane into a makeshift swing.
The men can be heard laughing and cheering as they take turns pushing a man into the air.
The Taliban have been brazenly showing off the US military equipment abandoned by troops during the final exit.
Islamist fighters have staged victory parades to show off the US military hardware they’ve seized.
The value of the weapons and equipment abandoned by the US was not immediately known, but it is likely to be in the tens of millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, China wasted little time seizing on President Biden’s botched withdrawal from Kabul last month.
Within hours of the Taliban takeover, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Beijing was ready for “friendly cooperation with Afghanistan.”
China had also sought to maintain unofficial ties with the Taliban throughout the withdrawal.
