Trump warns Taliban of consequences over Bagram Air Base

LAHORE (Dunya News) – President Donald Trump has warned the Taliban government of consequences if it does not return Bagram Air Base to the United States.

"If Afghanistan doesn’t give Bagram Airbase back to those that built it, the United States of America, BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN," Trump said in a Truth Social post.

According to media reports, the US has a plan to deploy limited numbers of troops at Bagram Air Base. The reports say the US president once again showed his intention to get Bagram Air Base back from Taliban.

The abandoned airfield in Afghanistan was once a symbol of American power. Trump wants it back.

For nearly 20 years, the Bagram Air Base stood as the sprawling symbol of American power in Afghanistan and as the heart of the long US military intervention there.

The Biden administration secretly evacuated the base on July 1, 2021, a few weeks ahead of its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Afghan army left in control of the base surrendered to the Taliban.

Now, President Donald Trump says he wants Bagram back. “We gave it to them for nothing,” he said in in London on Thursday. “We’re trying to get it back, by the way. … We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us.” Good. Bagram is worth pursuing, though not at any cost.

Bagram is strategically important because of its proximity to the border with China and to a nuclear testing range at Lop Nur in a remote part of Xinjiang province. The testing range was long believed abandoned, but there have been reports of increased Chinese military construction activities in the area.

An American military presence at Bagram would also allow the U.S. to conduct counterterrorism operations in a volatile region against the Islamic State-Khorasan terrorist group, which is also at war with the Taliban and has also spread its tentacles into Europe.