US to Deliver 20 Warplanes to Afghanistan
KABUL: (Middle East Press) The United States is willing to deliver 20 fighter jets to Afghanistan by the end of current year (2015), the Ministry of Defense (MoD) announced on Monday.
Dawlat Waziri, deputy spokesman of the MoD said in a statement to media “The Afghan Air Force direly needs fighter jets and our demand for cargo aircraft and helicopter has been met to some extend,”
Waziri added that talks with US officials are underway in this regard, however, he did not reveal the value of the aircrafts.
He said three brigades of armed forces in Kabul, Kandahar, and the Shindand district of Herat had been equipped with helicopter gunships and cargo aircrafts, adding that currently the air force’s 777 brigade in Kabul has 40 helicopters and 35 of them were fully operational and the remaining five needed some repair.
According to Waziri, the MoD owned 28 C20 and four C130 aircrafts used for different operations.
The MoD spokesman said 20 pilots of the Afghan National Army (ANA) currently being trained in the US and they would join the air force till the end of 2015.
