- Washington (IANS) - An air base in southwest Pakistan
will serve as a "key U.S. facility" in the region, signalling
a long-term presence of American troops in Pakistan.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has accepted a U.S. request for a long-term
presence of American soldiers at the air base in Jacobabad, 480 km north
of Karachi, the Washington Post said quoting Pakistani security sources.
They said the U.S. planned to use the base as a forward operations platform
for anti-terrorist operations and later as a platform from which to assist
the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
To that end, Pakistani officials said the U.S. also has informed them about
plans to establish a separate military command to monitor Afghanistan's
reconstruction.
U.S. officials have requested 40,000 metric tons of concrete to renovate
the base in Jacobabad, an aviation source said. American officials have
asked that a wall surrounding the base be raised.
They want to construct air-conditioned barracks for U.S. troops in time
for summer. Jacobabad is known as the hottest city in Pakistan, with summertime
temperatures soaring into 100s of Fahrenheit.
"In the foreseeable future, Jacobabad air base would continue to serve
as a key facility for the U.S. military's peacekeeping or counter-terrorism
operations in Afghanistan," the Post said quoting a Pakistani military
official, familiar with discussions on the subject.
U.S. officials have asked that all but a few Pakistani liaison officers
be withdrawn from the base, the aviation source said.
The U.S. requests, particularly for air-conditioned barracks, underscore
the long-term nature of Washington's fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.
"All indications we have is that the Americans are planning to stay
in our region for quite some time," said the Post, quoting an unnamed
aviation source. "They are talking about a semi-permanent presence."
A senior aide to Musharraf said the U.S. and its coalition partners believed
it was necessary to maintain a presence in the region "to ensure that
leftover Taliban pose no terrorist threat to the political and physical
rebuilding of Afghanistan."
Pakistani sources said Jacobabad was chosen as it is relatively close to
Afghanistan, but also far from Pakistan's nuclear weapons facilities in
the far southwest.
"Jacobabad was essentially a standby facility for Pakistan's air force,
at the same time it sits at the maximum distance from various nuclear installations,"
a senior military official said.
Hundreds of U.S. Army soldiers already are housed in 42 aircraft hangars
at the air base. Because of inadequate power supplies, U.S. forces experienced
heating problems during the cold winter evenings, officials said. Over
the next four months, barracks will be built for the troops, officials
said.
"There is no way ground forces can stay here unless air-conditioned
accommodations are raised at a rapid speed," said a Pakistan official
who is coordinating with the U.S. military's civil engineers at the airport.
Pakistani officials said while Jacobabad would be at the heart of the U.S.
military operations throughout the reconstruction work in Afghanistan,
its forces would maintain their presence at airfields in Pasni and Dalbandin.
The building plans at Jacobabad illustrate the increasingly close security
cooperation between Washington and Islamabad and how the U.S. managed to
rope in Musharraf to the idea of a long-term presence of American troops
on Pakistani soil without a murmur.
The Post said U.S. security personnel have operated in Pakistan before,
but their presence was largely restricted to intelligence or communication
experts.
Analysts said no more than 500 U.S. military personnel were stationed in
Pakistan when Field Marshal Ayub Khan allowed the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) to establish a massive electronic intelligence-gathering facility
at Badaber, near Peshawar, in 1963.
The U.S. used that site to monitor nuclear tests and other events in the
Soviet Union and China until 1968 when Khan succumbed to Soviet pressure
and closed the base.
Hundreds of U.S. personnel also operated in Pakistan during the 1980s guerrilla
war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
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