Trump threatens Kabul over control of Bagram air base

On his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote: “If Afghanistan does not return the Bagram Air Base to the people who built it — namely, the United States of America — bad things will happen!!!”

Trump said he expects Afghan officials to immediately place Bagram Air Base under U.S. control.

Bagram Air Base is a large military airport about 40 kilometers north of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Originally built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s, it served as the main hub for U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan from 2001 until the withdrawal of American forces in August 2021.

While en route to an event in Virginia, Trump was asked by reporters whether he ruled out deploying troops to retake Bagram. He replied: “We’re not going to talk about that. But right now, we are in discussions with Afghanistan, and we want to take it back — and we want to take it back soon and immediately. And if they don’t do it, if they don’t do it, you’ll see what I will do.”

Earlier, the American outlet The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. government was negotiating with Afghanistan’s caretaker government to redeploy some forces to Bagram in order to “fight terrorism,” a move that Afghan officials have opposed.