US President Donald Trump said on Friday it was "stupid" for the Biden administration to abandon military equipment worth billions of dollars in Afghanistan.

Trump said at a joint press conference with the Japanese prime minister at the White House on Friday that there was no reason to leave military equipment in Afghanistan.

“I want our military to be the strongest. I also don’t mind spending so much money on the military because we build it here, made in the USA. All made in the USA. I rebuilt our military during my first term, did a great job. We left some of it behind in Afghanistan stupidly. There was no reason for that,” Trump said.

Trump has repeatedly criticized the abandonment of military equipment in Afghanistan.

Trump said before his inauguration last month that future financial aid to Afghanistan would be contingent upon the return of US military equipment.

The Islamic Emirate, however, has said the equipment now belongs to Afghanistan and would not be handed over to the US.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday promised that there would be accountability for war in Afghanistan, which ended dramatically in 2021 with a chaotic withdrawal after a faster-than-expected collapse of the US-backed government in Kabul.

"We are going to look back at what happened in Afghanistan and hold people accountable -- not to be retrospective, not for retribution, but to understand what went wrong and why there was no accountability for it," Hegseth said addressing an audience at the Pentagon.

He pointed the failed war in Afghanistan, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Hamas' surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 as events that have eroded the global view of American strength. That, he said, increases risks to global stability.

"Unfortunately, over the last couple of years, we've seen events that have occurred that created the perception, reality or perception, but I would argue more perception, of American weakness," Hegseth said.

"Chaos happens when the perception of American strength is not complete. And so we aim to reestablish that deterrence."

Hegseth said he would travel next week to a NATO gathering of defense ministers in Brussels to deliver a message for them to "step up in their industrial base, in spending."

A German company, "Cinderella International Group," has assumed management of the Kabul Serena Hotel as of February 1, AFP reports.

The company has renamed the hotel to "Grand Kabul Hotel" and officially began overseeing its operations at the start of February.

Aaron Azim, CEO of the German firm, confirmed that a 10-year management contract has been signed with the Islamic Emirate for the hotel’s administration.

Azim, who holds dual Afghan-German citizenship, did not disclose the financial value of the contract.

He further shared that his company has been active in Afghanistan for 20 years, focusing primarily on road construction and mining projects.

Previously, the Islamic Emirate announced that the hotel’s management had been handed over to an international firm with substantial expertise in hotel management but withheld the company’s identity.