Uzbeks Hear a Quiet Bustle Near Air Base

Police halted all traffic Tuesday at a makeshift barricade on the road to the Khanabad air base, turning away everyone but authorized personnel.

Unfamiliar aircraft--including black jets and huge cargo planes--have been landing frequently in the last few days at the former Soviet air base, residents of the area said.

Otherwise, there is little outward sign of one of the biggest diplomatic breakthroughs of recent weeks: the deployment of the first U.S. troops in the territory of the former Soviet Union in more than 80 years.

The U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, is not talking about the American military presence. Neither is the Pentagon. The Uzbek government, after announcing Friday that U.S. forces would be allowed to operate here, similarly is a black hole for information.

Mirakbar Rakhmankulov, secretary of the Uzbek National Security Council, even denied reports of a U.S. deployment on Uzbek soil. “There are no Rangers, no special forces, no soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division,” he told reporters Monday. But even in this closed, dictatorial society, the official silence hasn’t stopped word from spreading in Karshi that the Americans have arrived at Khanabad, a base on the outskirts of the city about 200 miles from the Afghan border.

Many Uzbeks said they were glad to have the Americans arrive to help combat Afghanistan-based terrorists, who allegedly are responsible for a series of bombings in Tashkent in 1999 that killed 16 people.

“We’re happy because it will bring peace,” said Ikrom Khamidov, a 38-year-old barber who works on the road leading to the air base. “It will get rid of the terrorists.”

Uzbek President Islam Karimov said after meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last week that the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition could use his nation’s air bases for humanitarian or search and rescue missions. The first deployment was expected to total about 1,000 troops, with thousands more to follow.

There is no indication that any units from Khanabad have taken part in the strikes on Afghanistan this week. Rather, it appears that much of the activity has been to upgrade the aging facilities and prepare the base for later troop arrivals.

Among the vehicles allowed to pass through the police barricades and enter the base Tuesday were cranes and other heavy equipment. Improvements at Khanabad could prepare the base for an expanded role later in the anti-terrorism war if the Uzbek government were to agree to allow broader military action.

Some suggest that the definition of humanitarian and search and rescue missions could quietly be stretched to allow U.S. forces greater freedom without compelling the government to grant permission publicly.

Uzbekistan, a nation of about 25 million people that is slightly larger than California, is one of five Central Asian countries known as “the stans,” which once made up much of the southern part of the Soviet Union.

Uzbekistan became independent with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991--but it only grew more authoritarian.

Karimov, who was Uzbekistan’s leader during Soviet times, quickly consolidated power by banning opposition parties, controlling the press and limiting free speech.

The government has locked up thousands of political opponents and Islamic dissidents for as little as possessing religious leaflets, human rights activists say.

Karimov has long argued that Islamic extremists threaten the stability of the region and must be dealt with aggressively.

The Clinton administration labeled Uzbekistan an authoritarian state and criticized Karimov for abusing human rights. But the dictator’s harsh stand on extremism has become more appealing since the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.

When President Bush addressed Congress after the attacks, he named three international terrorist groups--and one of them was the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The radical group, which allegedly is linked to Saudi militant Osama bin Laden and operates out of Afghanistan, seeks to establish an Islamic state in the mountainous region that connects Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Concern that radical Muslims could gain a foothold in the region has overridden Russia’s long-standing abhorrence of the idea of U.S. forces operating from the territory of the former Soviet Union.

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, who is backing the coalition, gave his blessing to the deployment of U.S. troops here. The last time U.S. forces operated on Soviet territory was in 1919, when they joined the short-lived 15-nation Archangelsk expeditionary force to overthrow the Bolsheviks.