India winds up presence at airbase in Tajikistan

NEw new delhi: The amerind armed services has lesion up its front at a strategic airbase in Tajikistan, where it first deployed personnel while supporting the erstwhile Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, after the lapse of a bilateral agreement, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.The agreement between the Indian and Tajik governments for the development and joint operation of Ayni airbase, located a little more than 10 km west of the capital Dushanbe, ended about four years ago and was not renewed, the people said on condition of anonymity.Over the past two decades, the India side reportedly spent close to $100 million on developing and upgrading the airbase, which was originally built in the Soviet era and had fallen into disrepair after the break up of the Soviet Union. The upgrades included strengthening and lengthening the runway so that it could accommodate combat jets and heavy lift aircraft, and building hardened shelters, fuel depots and an air traffic control facility.India had also temporarily deployed a handful of Su-30MKI jets at Ayni after 2014 and a contingent of military personnel, mostly from the army and air force, was stationed at the airbase. At times, up to 200 Indian personnel were stationed at the airbase. The Indian personnel and all equipment were pulled out by 2022, the people said.In the initial period, India’s main intention behind having a presence at Ayni airbase was to facilitate the speedy supply of materials and equipment to the Northern Alliance, which was the main military alliance fighting the Taliban, as well as to provide air support and conduct surveillance.Alongside these efforts, India set up a military hospital at Farkhor in Tajikistan to treat injured Northern Alliance fighters. It was to this hospital that Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Afghan Tajik leader of the Northern Alliance, was rushed after he was fatally injured in an assassination attempt two days before the 9/11 terror attacks in the US.Even after the formation of a transitional government in Kabul following the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, India retained a presence at Ayni airbase as part of its efforts to increase in its influence in Central Asia and as part of strategic leverage over Pakistan, given that the facility was located only some 20 km from Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor, a narrow strip of land that shares a boundary with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).The Ayni airbase was used by the Indian side in pulling out its nationals and officials from Afghanistan after the Taliban assumed control of the country in August 2021. Both military and civilian aircraft were used by India to mount evacuation flights from the airbase, the people said.