WASHINGTON, Nov 6: US military teams are checking airfields in Tajikistan and other countries in the region to see if they could serve as bases for increasing air strikes in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Land-based air strikes would be easier than using Navy carrier-based warplanes and long-range bombers now employed in the attacks in Afghanistan, spokesman Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem told reporters.
Defense officials said US teams were also looking at air bases in other countries near Afghanistan, including Kazakhstan. US ground troops are currently based in Uzbekistan.
“There are a whole host of reasons why having airfields closer to Afghanistan is good,” Stufflebeem said as American warplanes pounded Taliban and al Qaeda targets for a 30th day.
These included less need for aerial refueling, shorter response times to intelligence reports on Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, and ability to more quickly rearm aircraft and get them back onto targets, he told reporters.
Asked about reports that teams were looking at three bases in Tajikistan, one of Afghanistan’s northern neighbors, he replied: “In terms of the airfields in Tajikistan ... there is an assessment team in the country to do just that.”
US officials said the assessment team in Tajikistan was looking at three bases: Kulyab, Khojand and Turgan-Tiube.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a weekend trip that included Russia and central Asia, met Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov on Saturday but did not announce any deal for the bases. He was to return to Washington on Monday night.
Stufflebeem said similar military survey teams were being dispatched to “all of the countries that have offered assistance,” but did not name them. “We would hope to have a capability to get access to Afghanistan from the north and the south,” he said.
Such bases would be useful for such fighter aircraft as F-15e ground attack planes and possibly A-10 tank-busting aircraft.
Of the approximately 75 fighter aircraft used on Sunday, Stufflebeem said about 60 were based on carriers, seven to 10 were long-range bombers and the rest land-based tactical jets. Defense officials said those tactical strike aircraft were based in the Gulf.
PREPARING THE BATTLEFIELD: Sunday’s sorties struck in five planned target areas, including Taliban cave and tunnel complexes and military forces, especially those arrayed against anti-Taliban forces, Stufflebeem said.
Stufflebeem said increasingly heavy strikes by US bombers and other warplanes on Taliban positions around the northern key crossroads city Mazar-i-Sharif and the capital Kabul were “preparing the battlefield” for when opposition Northern Alliance forces launch offensives to capture those cities.
The Pentagon said on Sunday that additional small teams of US special forces had been inserted into Afghanistan in recent days to help spot Taliban targets for air strikes, and Stufflebeem refused to rule out any use of large numbers of American troops to support the Northern Alliance.
“There are very few of us who believe this will be done solely by air power,” he said.
Stufflebeem said the US military had only anecdotal evidence that its bombing campaign was weakening Taliban protection of Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, but had seen no Taliban response to opposition fire for “a matter of days.”
“My guess is that would be because they’re either hunkered down and aren’t coming out ... or they’re not able to fire,” he said. “So I think that’s a very positive sign.”
“Our sense is that they are very satisfied that the Taliban are doing their fighting for them right now. We have not seen evidence that al Qaeda is active in Afghanistan,” he said.
SOURCE OF REVENUE: Tajikistan has begun charging Russian and international air companies for both civilian and military use of landing strips in Tajik airports.
The move comes after large losses suffered by Tajikistan’s state air company following the US-led attacks on Afghanistan, a Tajik state air company source said.
A Russian military source said the Tajikistan State Air Company had demanded 3,000 dollars from Russia for each military plane wishing to land or take off from Tajikistan.
According to the source, the demand went against an existing agreement between Dushanbe and Moscow, which stipulated that Russian military planes should be serviced in Tajikistan for free. —Reuters / AFP
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