Afghan Taliban rejects Trump threats over taking back Bagram airbase

Trump’s threat that “bad things” will happen if this does not happen is rejected by the Taliban, which demanded that it surrender the Bagram airbase that Washington controlled during its 20-year war in Afghanistan.

The Taliban urged the US to uphold previous agreements that it would not use force and stated on Sunday that “Afghanistan’s independence and territorial integrity are of the utmost importance.”

The rulers of Afghanistan reaffirmed that a policy of realism and rationality should be pursued in place of repeating previous unsuccessful approaches.

A sizable airbase located 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Kabul, known as Bagram, one of the US’s key military installations during its two-decade campaign against the Taliban, is located there. The conflict ended in 2021 with Washington’s abrupt and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan following the attacks from September 11, 2001, in New York and Washington.

During the so-called “war on terror,” US forces imprisoned thousands of people there for years without finding a charge or trial, and many of them were tortured or abused.

Following the US withdrawal and the fall of the Afghan government, the Taliban reclaimed control of the facility in 2021.

Trump has indicated a strong desire to retake control of the airbase over the past week.

“We’re talking to Afghanistan right now, and we want it back immediately.” And if they don’t, you’re going to find out what I’m going to do, Trump told reporters on Saturday.

Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer first made the announcement during a press conference that he was working to reclaim the base during a state visit to the country.

Trump said, “We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” in a message that caught the attention of Beijing’s policymakers. That is our goal. However, we know that the base is located an hour away from the nuclear weapons factory that China produces.

At Lop Nur, in western Xinjiang province, China’s nuclear testing facility is most likely where Trump mentioned.

According to the US Air Force, “The airfield has an 11, 800-foot]3, 597m] runway capable of serving bombers and large cargo aircraft,” according to Bagram’s website.

Trump claimed that the US did not give the Taliban “Bagram for nothing” after harshly criticizing his predecessor, former US President Joe Biden, for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Officials in Afghanistan have vehemently opposed a renewed US presence there. Afghanistan has never accepted a foreign military presence in its nation before, according to Zakir Jalaly, a representative from the Foreign Ministry.

A “deal over even an inch of Afghanistan’s soil is not possible,” according to Fasihuddin Fitrat, a senior ministry of defense official. We don’t require it, ” “

The Soviet Union, which had initially begun construction after the Afghan government turned to Moscow for assistance in the early 1950s, built Bagram during the Cold War. Prior to their withdrawal in the late 1980s, the airbase served Soviet forces there for decades.