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Uzbeks Silent on U.S. Presence
Saturday, October 13, 2001
TimesUnion.com

“Yes, we are allies,” an army lieutenant colonel told several American journalists. “Now go away.”

KARSHI, Uzbekistan -- Source
Turning back all civilian traffic, the Uzbek police waved backhoes and trucks loaded with gravel, sand and concrete past a heavily guarded checkpoint. Roaring past dirty mud-brick houses, construction vehicles sped out of sight on a dusty road that leads to the Khanabad military air base.

Here, ringed by tight security and public apprehension, more than 1,200 U.S. troops, including an enhanced infantry battalion from the 10th Mountain Division in Fort Drum, N.Y., are believed to be preparing an operation against terrorist bases in Afghanistan. Uzbek officers at this checkpoint near the Khanabad base, 300 miles and some dozen roadblocks southeast of Tashkent, confirmed that U.S. troops had arrived.

Uzbek authorities have established a 3-mile exclusion zone to prevent journalists from approaching the base. Ever since President Islam Karimov pledged to make the base available to the U.S. military for stationing cargo planes, helicopters and ground troops for humanitarian and rescue operations, his government has refused to comment on the U.S. presence -- until Friday.
(More: TimesUnion.com News Source)
2001 © Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation, Albany, N.Y.

Dan