Kyrgyzstan

It’s not been the greatest year for resupplying the Afghanistan war. The Kyrgyzstan government has been iffy about allowing the U.S. continued access to the Manas Air Base, a major transit hub, though it’s looking more like the U.S. military will keep access to Manas. Then there’s the NATO supply route through Pakistan, which goes [...]

When last we left the Manas air base drama, the Kyrgyz parliament had voted to deny the United States access to the big logistic air hub for the Afghanistan war, and the Pentagon was blubbering about it. But now it’s a mess of tiresome intrigue and false positives. Like, seriously:
Mr. Bakiyev said in an interview [...]

Well, so much for last-ditch efforts to retain access to Kyrgyzstan’s massive Manas airbase, a key logistical hub for the Afghanistan war. Danger Room’s Nathan Hodge passes on word that the Kyrgyz parliament voted to evict the United States from the base after all. What’s next? Nathan thinks … Iran, maybe:
Intriguingly, the Afghanistan supply dilemma [...]

The Washington Times reports that the Obama administration is sending a high-level delegation to Moscow to save access to a key air base for the Afghanistan war. Two weeks ago, the Russians basically bribed the Kyrgyzstan government to deny the United States use of its giant air base at Manas, a crucial hub for supplying [...]

I doubted yesterday that the Obama administration would seek a return to the Karshi-Khanabad air base in Uzbekistan — the government of Islam Karimov kicked the United States out in 2005 after the Bush administration admirably denounced one of his civilian massacres — but it seems I was wrong about that. In the aftermath of [...]

When I started calling around Tuesday to the Departments of State and Defense about the prospective loss of Kyrgyzstan’s Manas air base, the critical facility for air-based resupply of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, I got pretty uniform answers. It’s not definite. We haven’t heard anything official. Negotiations are ongoing. A U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan [...]

Kyrgyzstan may have just sold the United States’ rights to Manas Air Base to a higher bidder — Russia.

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 [...]