NEW YORK, Jan 27: The possibility of a complete withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan has raised concerns that the US will lose strategic air bases meant for drone strikes against the al Qaeda in Pakistan and for responding to a nuclear crisis in the region, a media report said.
In the event of President Barack Obama ultimately withdrawing all American troops from Afghanistan, the CIA’s drone bases in the war-torn country would have to be closed because they could no longer be protected, a report in the New York Times quoted US administration officials as saying.
The concern of American intelligence agencies also reflect how troop levels in Afghanistan directly affect long-term American security interests in neighbouring Pakistan, it said.
The concern of American intelligence agencies is that the “nearest alternative bases are too far away for drones to reach the mountainous territory in Pakistan where the remnants of al Qaeda’s central command are hiding. Those bases would also be too distant to monitor and respond as quickly as American forces can today if there were a crisis in the region, such as missing nuclear material or weapons in Pakistan and India,” the NYT report said.
It said Pakistan has in recent years accelerated its drive to build small tactical nuclear weapons that could be used to “repel an invasion from India.”
Those weapons are considered more vulnerable to theft or use by a rogue commander, and are the one reason that American intelligence agencies have invested heavily in monitoring the Pakistani arsenal, the report added.
The concern is so serious that the Obama administration has organised a team of intelligence, military and policy specialists to come up with alternatives to mitigate the damage if a final security deal cannot be struck with Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who has declined to enact an agreement that American officials thought was completed last year.
The sense of urgency among US intelligence agencies is mainly due to the Pentagon’s two proposals to Obama regarding the Afghan pullout.
One option calls for a presence through the end of Obama’s term of 10,000 American troops who could train Afghan troops, conduct counter-terrorism raids and protect the American facilities, including those in eastern Afghanistan where drones and nuclear monitoring are based. (AGENCIES)
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