I first wrote about this exactly six years ago when it became clear to US anti-terrorism officials that ISIS was really fond of Toyota pickups. They just couldn’t figure out how they got their hands on them. Apparently, with ISIS monopolizing the supply of Toyotas, other jihadist groups in Syria had to look elsewhere for their war wagon needs, like scoring a used Ford F-250 traded in at a dealership in Houston.
When tricked-out Toyotas showed up on both sides of the Yemeni civil war in 2018, I wrote about that too. As I noted in 2015, the Toyota Hilux and Toyota Land Cruisers have long enjoyed devoted fan bases across the rebel-jihadist-insurgent-revolutionary-guerrilla spectrum, not to mention cash-strapped militaries.
So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to find this new story, which unfolds at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul during August’s hurried evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan.
Here’s the details, as reported by T&P:
The obvious question, of course, is how American paratroopers managed to get their hands on a fully tricked out Toyota technical. Well, apparently, they traded for it. Two cans of “dip,” i.e. smokeless tobacco, to be exact. Skoal, brother!
Task & Purpose continues the story:
This whole episode may end up memorialized at the 82nd Airborne Division Museum at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. If the unit gets permission to bring it into the United States, that is.
When tricked-out Toyotas showed up on both sides of the Yemeni civil war in 2018, I wrote about that too. As I noted in 2015, the Toyota Hilux and Toyota Land Cruisers have long enjoyed devoted fan bases across the rebel-jihadist-insurgent-revolutionary-guerrilla spectrum, not to mention cash-strapped militaries.
So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to find this new story, which unfolds at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul during August’s hurried evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan.
Here’s the details, as reported by T&P:
Most of the security posts around the perimeter of the airport had been abandoned, said Lt. Col. Andy Harris, commander of the 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Soldiers with the battalion quickly set about bolstering the airport’s defenses, yet the situation remained volatile — Taliban fighters were just meters away, outside the airport’s gates — and much of the equipment they’d typically use, like heavy vehicles and machine guns, had yet to arrive at the airport.
What they did have, however, was a green pickup truck outfitted with an anti-aircraft gun.
The obvious question, of course, is how American paratroopers managed to get their hands on a fully tricked out Toyota technical. Well, apparently, they traded for it. Two cans of “dip,” i.e. smokeless tobacco, to be exact. Skoal, brother!
Task & Purpose continues the story:
Because Harris and his soldiers were some of the first to arrive in Kabul, they were light on equipment. The focus was getting troops into Kabul, he said, which meant there wasn’t much room for “our heavy equipment or vehicles with our heavy machine guns.”
“We just had our basic weapons, we didn’t have any heavy machine guns, any gun trucks or anything,” said [Iraqi-born] Pfc. [Alsajjad] Al Lami.
But the Afghan forces had their own gear, including an olive green Afghan National Army truck mounted with a Russian-made 14.5mm ZPU-2 anti-aircraft gun. On Aug. 17, when the Afghan troops informed Bravo Company that they were moving to another area of the airport, the paratroopers asked if they wouldn’t mind handing over the keys.
“There were two guys standing by the truck, and we asked them if they had the keys,” Al Lami said. “They were like, ‘Yeah we do have the keys.’ And they gave us the keys for two cans of dip.”
This whole episode may end up memorialized at the 82nd Airborne Division Museum at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. If the unit gets permission to bring it into the United States, that is.
⏭Professor Peter Trumbore blogs @ Observations/Research/Diversions.
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