Republicans in the House sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Monday, asking for a briefing about how closely the Department of Defense is monitoring the flow of U.S. weapons to Hamas used in their terrorist onslaught against key ally Israel, reported the Washington Examiner.
In the letter, which was authored by GOP House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky and Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, they request Austin appear on Capitol Hill next Monday amid reports that U.S. arms are making their way into the hands of terrorists from the battlefields in Ukraine to terrorists in Afghanistan.
“The Committee has seen reports that U.S.-manufactured weapons are being redistributed and resold in secondary markets to terrorist organizations, including Hamas,” wrote Greene and Comer, according to the Examiner.
The pair requested a briefing on DOD “procedures for preventing, addressing, and mitigating weapon diversion abroad,” according to the letter, the Examiner reported.
Israel Defense Forces posted a photo of an M-16 on October 5, two days before the terrorist attack — that a Hamas terrorist was using to fire at IDF personnel before being “neutralized” by them.
Ukraine official: Russia is supplying Hamas with trophy weapons
A Ukraine defense official said weeks ago that Russia was supplying Hamas with trophy weapons from the U.S., confiscated from battles with forces in Ukraine, as a way to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of its allies in the West.
Greene also posted on October 8 that the U.S. needs to “work with Israel to track serial numbers on any U.S. weapons used by Hamas against Israel” and asked rhetorically if the weaponry came from Afghanistan or Ukraine.
“Highly likely the answer is both,” Greene posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
According to a report from the Pentagon, the U.S. left behind $7.12 billion in military equipment in what was criticized heavily as Biden’s blundered, hurried, and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. The U.S. bequeathed it to Afghan Security and National Defense Forces in a country controlled by the Taliban and turned the terrorist organization into arms dealers.
Moving until now, the U.S. has provided Ukraine with more than $45 billion in military assistance alone since the invasion by Russia, and House Republicans have zero appetite for repeating the sins of Afghanistan.
“The U.S. Government remains keenly aware of the risk of possible illicit diversion and is proactively taking steps to mitigate this risk in close cooperation with the government of Ukraine,” said the State Department to Newsweek in June. “We are sending weapons to help Ukraine defend itself in an active conflict, and realistically must acknowledge that there is a risk these weapons could be captured if territory changes hands, as can happen in any war.”
According to the letter, Greene and Comer want to know the mitigation steps.
