Islamic Emirate Army

The previous Taliban maintained 400 T-54/55 and T-62 tanks and more than 200 armoured personnel carriers.[8][9] The Taliban also began training its own army and commanders. After the removal of the Taliban government in late 2001, private armies loyal to warlords gained more and more influence. In mid-2001, Ali Jalali wrote:[10]

The army (as a state institution, organized, armed, and commanded by the state) does not exist in Afghanistan today. Neither the Taliban-led "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" nor the "Islamic State of Afghanistan" headed by the ousted President Rabbani has the political legitimacy or administrative efficiency of a state. The militia formations they command are composed of odd assortments of armed groups with varying level of loyalties, political commitment, professional skills, and organizational integrity. Many of them feel free to switch sides, shift loyalties, and join or leave the group spontaneously. The country suffers from the absence of a top political layer capable of controlling individual and group violence. ... Although both sides identify their units with military formations of the old regime, there is hardly any organizational or professional continuity from the past. But these units really exist in name only ... in fact only their military bases still exist, accommodating and supporting an assortment of militia groups.

The Afghan Air Force under the previous Taliban maintained five supersonic MiG-21MFs and 10 Sukhoi-22 fighter-bombers.[11] They also held six Mil Mi-8 helicopters, five Mi-35s, five L-39Cs, six An-12s, 25 An-26s, a dozen An-24 and An-32s, an IL-18, and a Yakovlev. Their civil air service contained two Boeing 727A/Bs, a Tu-154, five An-24s, and a DHC-6.

Taliban patrolling the streets of Kabul following its fall, 2021

On 3 August 1995, a incident involving Taliban’s Afghan Air Force MiG-21 aircraft forced a Russian Ilyushin 76 cargo plane carrying arms from Albania to Afghanistan to land at Kandahar.[12][13] Negotiations between the Russian government and the Taliban to free the men stalled for over a year and efforts by American senator Hank Brown to mediate between the two parties broke down over a prisoner exchange.[14] The Taliban stated that they would free the airmen if the Russians released Afghans held by the Russian government. However the Russians denied holding any Afghan citizens. Brown was able to get the Taliban to agree that the Russian crew should be allowed to maintain their aircraft.[14] This request paved the way for their escape.[14]

As of August 2021, the Taliban maintains at least two elite units under its command, the Badri 313 Battalion and the Red Unit.[15] The army itself to date relies heavily on captured hardware from the defeated Afghan National Army. Approximately 2,000 vehicles fell into Taliban hands after the Fall of Kabul, including the Humvee, M1117 Guardian, MaxxPro MRAP and Oshkosh ATV. In terms of infantry equipment, captured items include the M4 carbine, M16 rifle, night-vision goggles, body armor suits, communication equipment and shoulder-mounted grenade launchers. These U.S. made firearms are reportedly replacing Russian made AK-47s and AK-74s carried by most Taliban fighters.[16]

After the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul during the 2021 Taliban offensive, the Taliban has acquired UH-60 Black Hawks, Mil Mi-24s (most of them without engines), Mil Mi-8s/Mil Mi-17s, A-29 Super Tucanos, Cessna 208s, and C-130 Hercules, captured from the AAF.

According to the testimony of Guantanamo detainees before their Combatant Status Review Tribunals, the Taliban, in addition to conscripting men to serve as soldiers, also conscripted men to staff its civil service.[23]