Washington, February 13, SPA -- Thousands of U.S. weapons including assault rifles and grenade launchers may be in the hands of the Taliban or al Qaida in Afghanistan because of lax controls, congressional auditors said Thursday. The Pentagon has failed to track about 87,000 weapons given to Afghan security forces, one-third of the 242,000 shipped by the U.S. government between late 2004 and mid-2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said. The report by the GAO—the non-partisan investigative branch of Congress—said there had been no monitoring of another 135,000 weapons donated by NATO allies to the poorly paid and corrupt Afghan army and police. Understaffed U.S. military offices neglected to record serial numbers or conduct on-site inventories once the weapons were delivered to Afghanistan, the report said.“Given the unstable security conditions in Afghanistan, the risk of loss and theft of these weapons is significant,” said the report, which was submitted to a congressional hearing on Thursday. Asked if U.S. weapons could already be in the hands of the Taliban or al Qaida, GAO international affairs director Charles Johnson cited military reports about “the theft of weapons and weapons potentially being sold to enemies.”The report was similar to GAO findings in mid-2007 that the Pentagon had lost track of almost 200,000 weapons given to security forces in Iraq. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Defense Department already had taken action on the GAO report’s recommendations for tracking of serial numbers and physical inventories of weapons given to Afghanistan by both the United States and allies.“We take our responsibility with regard to accountability of weapons seriously,” Whitman told reporters. “I think the record will show that our performance on this has improved over time.”--SPA www.spa.gov.sa/635069