Isolated military bases in Uzbekistan provide ideal secrecy for possible U.S. use

By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer

KHANABAD AIR BASE, Uzbekistan – Just finding the way to the main entrance of this military installation in desolate southwest Uzbekistan is no easy task. Many locals don't know where it is.

The well-maintained secrecy around military installations in this Central Asian country is just one reason it could offer U.S. forces a safe base to support operations targeting Afghanistan in response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

Uzbekistan is not a place where news travels quickly. For days, national TV replayed the same clip of President Islam Karimov promising to cooperate in the U.S. fight against terrorism. Newspapers are still state-controlled and the KGB lingers on under a different name. Most people look to Russian-language media from Moscow for information that's fresher and less filtered than the homegrown kind.

Police checkpoints are common at city limits and along the roads that snake through the cotton fields and desert hills of the countryside. Military bases are strictly off-limits to journalists without permission from authorities in the capital, Tashkent – permission that was denied despite repeated requests.

At Khanabad, a cluster of radar trucks and larger dishes line the road toward the air base, which is about 125 miles north of the Afghan border. A mural at the entrance depicts a MiG-29 fighter jet thrusting through a blue sky.

But that's the only aircraft to be seen in action in the area. For several hours Monday, no plane engines could be heard at the base, nor any movement seen behind the white concrete wall that encircles the vast complex dotted with airplane hangars.

The same was true at the Kakydi Air Base, about 25 miles north of the Afghan border, where on Monday there were no signs of increased activity or security indicating a possible foreign presence. There, three rusting jets stand guard along the road to the nearby village, where a stand sells counterfeit Coca-Cola.

Secrecy is not the only thing Uzbekistan can offer Washington. Its military is seen as the strongest in the region, with 80,000 active troops, according to a July report by the International Crisis Group, and a well developed infrastructure.

Should American soldiers come to Uzbekistan, they would have to cope with the region's fickle weather. A sandstorm swept across southern Uzbekistan from Afghanistan on Tuesday, blotting out the sky with a fine dust that crept inside buildings despite all efforts to keep it out.

Visibility was cut to a few hundred yards by the storm, which locals call an Afganets – the Russian word for a person from Afghanistan. Flights out of Termez airport near the Afghan border were canceled for the day, and the local bazaar closed early when merchants tired of continuously sweeping the dust off their goods.

Uzbekistan's defense apparatus, like every other institution in the country, is beholden to the authoritarian president, Karimov. He reiterated his nation's backing in the fight against terrorism this week, saying Uzbekistan is "ready to support the United States and open its airspace for the U.S. air force."

That invitation contrasts starkly with warnings from Iran, another country bordering Afghanistan. Iran opposes a U.S.-led war on terrorism, and its defense minister has said Iranian planes would "confront" American aircraft if they use its airspace for attacks on Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's other neighbors are Pakistan, where the government is cooperating with the United States but Islamic extremists have warned against a U.S. military presence; Tajikistan, which is home to 25,000 Russian troops; and Turkmenistan. China has a tiny, mountainous border with Afghanistan.

Strategically, Uzbekistan has served as a stabilizing anchor in the region.

One of five former Soviet republics in Central Asia, it has taken an independent stance, opting out of a collective security treaty with the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Moscow-led group of former Soviet republics, in 1999. It joined a security organization that includes Russia, China and three other Central Asian countries only in June.

Karimov's insistence on keeping Moscow at an arm's length also gives the United States more freedom to deal directly with Uzbekistan.

Tashkent was one of the first Central Asian capitals to express support for the United States following the attacks. Ethnic Uzbeks make up a strong component of a contingent of Afghanistan's opposition Northern Alliance that is commanded by Rashid Dostum, himself an Uzbek.

However, Uzbekistan has tried so far to avoid getting pulled into the Afghan fighting and kept its border to the country tightly shut – including the single bridge that crosses the Amu-Darya River and leads to a key Taliban stronghold in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

Instead, Uzbekistan has been fighting its own homegrown extremist movement, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. President Bush singled out the movement as a group allied with the al-Qaida network of Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

APNP-10-02-01 1333CDT