[A-List] US Military Settles Down In Central Asia, Afghanistan; Russia, China, Iran Uneasy

[Rick Rozoff <r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx>]

1) US Military Digs In For Long Stay In Central Asia;
Russia, China, Iran Uneasy
2) US Troops Raid Pakistani Village
3) Suspected Taliban Kill Fourteen Government Troops,
Police; NATO Warns Of Spring Offensive
4) Five Afghan Government Troops Found Dead
5) Militias From Pakistan Attack Afghan Border Post



1)
http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/bt/Auzbekistan-digging-in.ReHm_Ey4.html


Associated Press
May 3, 2004

U.S. Set for Long Haul in Afghanistan
BURT HERMAN


-[B]eyond the concrete walls surrounding this
ex-Soviet base, nearby China, Russia and Iran are all
nervously watching the American presence on their
doorstep.
More than 2 1/2 years after Uzbekistan allowed U.S.
forces to use the base -- the first American
deployment in the former Soviet Union....
-The United States has spent $5 million to double the
amount of parking space for planes, and about 20
lumbering C-130-type transport aircraft are based at
K2.
-All the bustle at K2 makes it appear it will figure
strongly in the Pentagon's post-Cold War realignment
from long-held bases in Europe closer to the 21st
century's hot spots.
-In Russia, which considers former Soviet Central Asia
its strategic backyard, some hard-line politicians
have called for the Americans to leave as soon as
possible.
The Chinese have also grown uneasy; the other U.S.
regional base is near Bishkek, the capital of
Kyrgyzstan, just 175 miles west of China. Iran, which
has also sought to counter U.S. influence in Central
Asia, lies west of Afghanistan.



KARSHI-KHANABAD AIR BASE, Uzbekistan - The din of
bulldozers and steamrollers competes with the roar of
aircraft engines at this U.S. outpost for the
anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan. The Americans are
digging in for the long haul - but walking on
eggshells.

Based in this majority Muslim nation of 26 million,
they are anxious not to offend their hosts or build
anything that looks permanent. And beyond the concrete
walls surrounding this ex-Soviet base, nearby China,
Russia and Iran are all nervously watching the
American presence on their doorstep.

More than 2 1/2 years after Uzbekistan allowed U.S.
forces to use the base -- the first American
deployment in the former Soviet Union -- it remains a
key transit and support point for operations in
Afghanistan.

Karshi-Khanabad air base, known as K2, is 90 miles
from the border and two hours' flying time from
anywhere in Afghanistan. It's also the main hub for
civilian contractors from Halliburton Co. subsidiary
KBR to catch military flights into Afghanistan.

Although the base is generally off-limits to
journalists, the military recently allowed The
Associated Press to visit.

The United States has spent $5 million to double the
amount of parking space for planes, and about 20
lumbering C-130-type transport aircraft are based at
K2.

New barracks are going up, so all the base's 1,750
personnel -- 900 Air Force, 400 Army and 450 civilians
-- will be out of tents by fall. Also coming soon are
an expanded $500,000 fitness center, a new $1 million
dining hall and a movie theater. Roads are being
paved, with some already named Wall St. or Fifth Ave.
in honor of New York and the victims of the Sept. 11
attacks.

All the bustle at K2 makes it appear it will figure
strongly in the Pentagon's post-Cold War realignment
from long-held bases in Europe closer to the 21st
century's hot spots. But U.S. officials and base
commanders say no long-term plans have been made, and
the new buildings are mostly prefabs that can be
removed quickly.

"Whatever construction we have here is for an enduring
presence, but not long-term," said base commander Army
Lt. Col. Neal Kemp.

Uzbek President Islam Karimov has said the Americans
will stay only as long as Afghanistan operations
continue. But other Uzbek officials more recently have
left open the question of a longer presence.

K2, which is also home to Uzbek fighter planes, served
as a main hub for U.S. special operations in
Afghanistan and once hosted AC-130 gunships and other
combat aircraft. U.S. commanders say no combat
operations are now taking place from K2.

In Russia, which considers former Soviet Central Asia
its strategic backyard, some hard-line politicians
have called for the Americans to leave as soon as
possible.

The Chinese have also grown uneasy; the other U.S.
regional base is near Bishkek, the capital of
Kyrgyzstan, just 175 miles west of China. Iran, which
has also sought to counter U.S. influence in Central
Asia, lies west of Afghanistan.

Given those sensitivities -- and the secretiveness of
the authoritarian Uzbek government -- K2 still remains
extremely low-profile and tightly secured.

Enlisted men aren't allowed to visit the nearby city
of Karshi. Officers who go off base on business wear
civilian clothes.

"We are not going to be the ugly Americans that give
them a bad opinion of the United States," said U.S.
Air Force Col. Timothy Vining, commander of air
operations at K2.

Uzbek troops handle perimeter security at two
checkpoints before the U.S. gate, so armed American
soldiers aren't seen from the outside. When a Humvee
convoy recently took a wrong turn into a village, the
U.S. forces apologized to the Uzbek military.

The Americans' isolation doesn't mean they're immune
from Uzbekistan's Soviet-style bureaucracy and rampant
corruption. Uzbek drivers trucking U.S. supplies to
northern Afghanistan have had to wait up to a week at
the border. There have even been attempts to smuggle
vodka into Afghanistan on the trucks.

Jobs are scarce in nearby Karshi, so the employment of
some 500 Uzbeks at the base is welcome, said Utkir
Normominov, who earns $200 a month supervising
janitors at K2.

The 22-year-old Uzbek wears a Boston Red Sox cap and
studies English at Karshi university.

"America trusts me," he said. "The U.S. Army trusts
me."
------------------------------------------------------
2)
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_5-5-2004_pg1_4

Reuters
May 4, 2004


US troops stray into Pakistan


-The US troops searched shops and a petrol pump in the
village of Alwara Mandi, in North Waziristan during a
nighttime operation, according to Pakistan?s
Major-General Shaukat Sultan. Eyewitnesses said 60 US
troops were involved in the operation....


ISLAMABAD: US troops hunting Al Qaeda and Taliban
militants crossed over from Afghanistan into Pakistan
to search a Pashtun tribal village in a rare violation
of the border, Pakistan?s military spokesman said on
Tuesday. News of the incident, which took place on May
2, came a day after the top US commander in
Afghanistan said foreign fighters were still launching
attacks from Pakistan?s semi-autonomous tribal belt.
The US troops searched shops and a petrol pump in the
village of Alwara Mandi, in North Waziristan during a
nighttime operation, according to Pakistan?s
Major-General Shaukat Sultan. Eyewitnesses said 60 US
troops were involved in the operation and they
returned to Afghan soil immediately after being told
that they were on the wrong side of the border. ?The
moment they were informed they went back. They stayed
for no longer than 25 minutes,? Sultan said. He said
such incursions were very rare, although US
helicopters had strayed into Pakistan airspace before.
------------------------------------------------------
3)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040504/wl_nm/afghan_taliban_dc_2

Reuters
May 4, 2004


Taliban Kill 14 Afghan Troops and Police


KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban guerrillas have killed
nine government troops and five policemen as violence
intensifies in Afghanistan's troubled south, Taliban
officials said Tuesday.

The Islamist fighters killed the nine soldiers in an
ambush on a patrol in Kandahar province's remote
district of Meya Nishin late Monday, according to
Taliban spokesman Haji Latif Hakimi.

Khalid Pashtun, a spokesman for Kandahar's governor
confirmed the ambush, but said he had heard only five
soldiers were killed.

Doctors in neighboring Zabul province told Reuters
they had received the bullet ridden bodies of five
policemen abducted on Monday in the Shah Joy district.


"We have killed the five that we kidnapped," Taliban
commander Mullah Rozi Khan told Reuters.

Four government soldiers were killed Sunday in Zabul
in a mine blast.

Commanders of NATO forces in Kabul fear a spring
offensive by Taliban militia, as the government gears
up for landmark parliamentary and presidential
elections in September.

Some 700 people have been killed since last August,
mostly in raids blamed on the Taliban, which has vowed
to wage a jihad, or holy war, against the U.S.-backed
government of President Hamid Karzai, aid workers,
foreign troops and international peacekeeping forces.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan until the U.S.-led
invasion in late 2001.
------------------------------------------------------
4)
http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/aw/Aafghan-soldiers-killed.R79d_Ey4.html


Five Afghan Soldiers Found Dead
STEPHEN GRAHAM


Kabul, Afghanistan - The bullet-riddled bodies of five
government soldiers were found in southern Afghanistan
Tuesday, a day after they were abducted by suspected
Taliban, an Afghan official said.

Troops sent to search for the five Afghan National
Army soldiers found their bodies in the Sur Ghogan
area of Zabul province, about 240 miles southwest of
the capital, Kabul, Zabul Gov. Khial Mohammed said.

"We found the bodies and the Taliban took their
vehicle," Mohammed said. "They were all shot in the
stomach and chest."

Officials say the troops were kidnapped on Monday when
suspected Taliban stopped their vehicle between
Shahjoy and the provincial capital Qalat, on the main
road from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar.

A purported spokesman for the Taliban, Abdul Hakim
Latifi, said on Monday that it had taken the men, but
also said they were safe and that conditions for their
release would be discussed later.

Taliban-led militants have stepped up their attacks in
recent weeks, killing dozens of Afghan soldiers and
civilians, and bringing the death toll in violence
across the country to more than 300 this year.

Authorities appear to have little control in Zabul,
where officials said four Afghan soldiers and two
civilians were killed by mines and dozens of Taliban
fighters attacked a government office in a remote
district on Sunday.

In neighboring Paktika province, an Afghan commander
said his men fired artillery in response to five
rockets aimed at their base on the Pakistani border.

Gen. Zakim Khan said there were no casualties in the
attack on Sunday night at Lwara, a new base that his
border division shares with U.S. special forces, about
120 miles south of Kabul.

"The fire came from inside Afghanistan," he said. "We
fired back and they showed no more reaction."

Further north, an official in Khost province said U.S.
helicopters had fired several rockets into the
mountains near the Pakistani border on Monday.

The target was unclear, the official said on condition
of anonymity.

U.S. military officials in Kabul didn't respond to
requests for comment.

Poor security threatens to upset plans for the
country's first post-Taliban elections slated for
September, despite the presence of some 15,000 mainly
U.S. troops pursuing insurgents and 6,000 NATO-led
peacekeepers.
------------------------------------------------------5)
http://www.rferl.org/newsline/6-swa.asp


Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
May 4, 2004

MILITANTS FROM PAKISTAN ATTACK AFGHAN BORDER POLICE


Militias based in Pakistan allegedly attacked Afghan
border police in the Yaqubi area of the Lalpur
District, in the eastern Nangarhar Province on 2 May,
according to a report by state-run Kabul Radio
Afghanistan on 3 May. The commander of the border
police in the province, General Mustafa, reportedly
told Radio Kabul that a clash continued for two hours
after the attack. The Afghan border forces, he said,
did not suffer any casualties. KM










	
		
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