US military teams are checking airfields in Tajikistan and other countries in the region to see if they could serve as bases for increasing airstrikes in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Land-based airstrikes would be easier than using Navy carrier-based warplanes and long-range bombers now employed in the campaign against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, 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.
PHOTO: AFP
"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 the 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, who was on a weekend trip that included Russia and Central Asia, met with Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov on Saturday but did not announce any deal for the bases. He was to return to Washington late on Monday.
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.
The Pentagon on Monday refused to confirm or deny a report by NBC News that US forces had begun using the biggest conventional weapon in the American arsenal. Quoting unnamed military officials, NBC said US planes dropped two BLU-82 bombs -- 6,800kg bombs -- on Taliban troops in northern Afghanistan.
"We're not going to get into a lot of the operational details of what we are doing there," said Pentagon spokesman Air Force Major Jay Steuck.
"As we've said all along, we will use at our choice the entire arsenal of choices. That would include a weapon of that nature. But I can't confirm that detail [that the BLU-82 had been used] at this point."
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