• Afghan defence official says a deal to return air base to US is ‘not possible’; notes Afghanistan’s independence and territorial integrity are of the utmost importance
• US president threatened Afghanistan with ‘bad things’ if the base is not handed back; experts warn re-occupying the base would require huge manpower and face threats from IS, al Qaeda, and Iran

KABUL: An Afghan government defence official said Sunday that a deal over Bagram air base was “not possible”, after US President Donald Trump said he wanted the former US base back.

Bagram, the largest air base in Afghanistan located north of the capital Kabul, was the centre of US operations in their 20 year-war against the Taliban.

Trump threatened unspecified punishment against Afghanistan if it was not returned -- four years after it was abandoned by US troops.

“If Afghanistan doesn’t give Bagram Airbase back to those that built it, the United States of America, BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!!!” the 79-year-old leader wrote on his Truth Social platform.

On Sunday, Fasihuddin Fitrat, chief of staff of Afghanistan’s ministry of defence, said “some people” want to take back the base through a “political deal”.

“Recently, some people have said that they have entered negotiations with Afghanistan for taking back Bagram air base,” he said in comments broadcast by local media.

“A deal over even an inch of Afghanistan’s soil is not possible. We don’t need it.” Later in an official statement, the Afghan government warned that “Afghanistan’s independence and territorial integrity are of the utmost importance”.

Trump has repeatedly criticised the loss of the base, noting its proximity to China.

But Thursday while on a state visit to Britain was the first time he publicly raised the idea of the United States retaking control of it.

US and Nato troops chaotically pulled out of Bagram in July 2021, under Joe Biden’s presidency but as part of a 2020 Trump-brokered deal with Taliban insurgents.

Trump was asked by reporters at the White House if he was considering sending US troops to retake Bagram.

“We won’t talk about that, but we’re talking now to Afghanistan, and we want it back and we want it back soon, right away. And if they don’t do it, you’re going to find out what I’m going to do,” he said.

A massive, sprawling facility, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others have repeatedly raised allegations of systematic human rights abuses by US forces at Bagram, especially pertaining to detainees in Washington’s murky “War on Terror”.

The original airfield was built with assistance from what was then the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, expanded with US help during the Cold War, and significantly developed further by Moscow during the decade-long Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

At the height of US control around 2010 it had grown to the size of a small town, with supermarkets and shops including outlets such as Dairy Queen and Burger King.

‘Difficult to secure’

Experts say the sprawling air base would be difficult to secure initially and would require massive manpower to operate and protect.

Even if the Taliban accepted the US re-occupation of Bagram following negotiations, it would need to be defended from a host of threats including Islamic State and al Qaeda militants inside Afghanistan.

It could also be vulnerable to an advanced missile threat from Iran, which attacked a major US air base in Qatar in June after the United States struck Iranian nuclear sites.

It was visited by several US presidents including Barrack Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2019.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2025