KARACHI, 11 October — Unusual military activity was reported yesterday at a remote airport in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province. Foreign military cargo planes were seen arriving at the airport yesterday amid reports the United States is establishing a logistical presence in the country as it escalates air strikes against neighboring Afghanistan.
Witnesses said they had seen what they believed to be US cargo planes and helicopters landing at two remote airports in the desert province of Baluchistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
“We saw two cargo aircraft and some black helicopters at the airport,” said Waqar Qureshi, a resident of a village near Jacobabad airport, some 500 km northeast of this southern port city. Civil Aviation Authority Deputy Director General Air Vice Marshall Arshad Rashid denied having any knowledge of the presence of the US planes at the airport.
“Jacobabad is among the few airports in Pakistan which offers ‘joint airfields’ to both military and commercial flights. If some planes landed at the airport, only air headquarters could confirm it,” he said.
Witnesses also said they had seen unidentified foreign military aircraft at the airport in Pasni, a remote coastal town some 500 km west of here, near the Pakistani naval base of Gwadar in western Baluchistan. Officials at Jacobabad said the Pakistan Army had significantly boosted its presence in the city in recent days, with check-points set up on the roads leading to the airport. “The army has been deployed and many pickets have been set up for security,” Deputy Mayor Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani said.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Monday confirmed that US-led forces had used its airspace to attack Taleban militia over its refusal to hand over Osama Bin Laden. Musharraf has promised the use of airspace, intelligence and logistical support, but so far Pakistani officials have dismissed reports that any foreign troops are in the country. “These reports are baseless,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Khan told reporters at a press briefing in Islamabad yesterday.
But military sources said Pakistan’s offer of logistical support did not rule out the use of Pakistani airfields, for operations such as search and rescue within Afghanistan or for emergency landings.
“They should have started landing by now,” one military source said, although he did not confirm that US planes were using Pakistani airports. Military spokesman Rashid Qureshi said he was “not sure” whether US forces were using Jacobabad.
“We cannot disclose the practicals of our logistic support to the United States. Do not expect us to reveal that,” he said.
“There is no truth in any report that any operation or offensive would be launched against Afghanistan from Pakistan.”
