Could the United States Be Kicked Out of Kyrgyz Air Base? (This Is Actually Important!)

Created: February 03, 2009 14:43 | Last updated: July 31, 2020 00:00

Via Nathan Hodge at Danger Room, there are Russian reports that Kyrgyzstan is going to end American access to their Manas Air Base. If true, that’s huge: Manas is a massive logistics hub for resupplying U.S. forces in Afghanistan by air. At the moment, Taliban and aligned forces are going after NATO supply lines to Afghanistan that run by ground through Pakistan, and losing access to Manas would compound problems for the United States in Afghanistan significantly.

Manas is the only regional airbase the United States has access to for Afghanistan outside the country. As the Associated Press notes, the United States lost access to its the so-called “K-2″ air base in Uzbekistan in 2005, the only other aerial resupply point alternative, which the United States had leased. For at least three years, the United States and the Kyrgyz government have been working out payments for the expensive base, all while the Russians have been pressing the former Soviet Republic to get the Americans out. If these reports are correct, the Afghanistan war just got a lot harder.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Mark Wright, says that the State Department hasn’t sent any notice to the Pentagon of any impending changes about Manas access, and couldn’t confirm these early reports. Wright continued to say that there were “multiple supply routes, both air and ground” to keep resupplying troops in Afghanistan, but wouldn’t get into any specifics about rerouting in the “hypothetical” case of losing Manas.