Ownership of 46 U.S. military aircraft that have sat on the tarmac in Uzbekistan’s southern city of Termez for more than three years has finally been established.
Most of those planes and helicopters are going to Uzbekistan, and south of the Uzbek border in Afghanistan, the Taliban are not pleased with this decision.
Escape from Afghanistan
On August 15, 2021, Taliban forces freely entered Kabul and reestablished themselves in power.
The rapid advances of Taliban militants across Afghanistan earlier that month came as the last foreign forces were departing from the country.
Panic broke out throughout the nation. On the day the Taliban entered Kabul, dozens of Afghan Army aircraft carrying government officials and soldiers left their bases and flew north, some to Tajikistan, most to Uzbekistan.
In Uzbekistan, the Afghans were deported to U.S. custody and taken to the United Arab Emirates, where they were eventually given U.S. visas and sent to live in the United States.
However, the 22 planes and 24 helicopters they flew aboard to Uzbekistan have remained at Termez.
The aircraft belonged to the United States. They were loaned for use by the U.S.-backed government forces in Afghanistan.
The Taliban assert that all the weapons used by troops of the ousted Afghan government belong to the Afghan people, meaning to the Taliban.
On January 4, 2022, Taliban Defense Ministry representative, Inomulla Samagani, said a request for the return of the aircraft had been made to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Days later, the Taliban’s acting Defense Minister, Mawlawi Mohammad Yaqoob, son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, demanded their return.
“Our planes that you have, that are in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, must be returned to us,” Yaqoob said, warning both countries, “not to test our patience and not to force us to take possible retaliatory steps to [reclaim the aircraft].”
As economic relations have grown between Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and Uzbekistan since late 2021, the Taliban’s language has softened, but their claim to the planes and helicopters has been repeated several times.
On August 24, 2024, Uzbekistan’s kun.uz news agency reported that U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan Johnathan Henick had stated that most of the U.S. aircraft in Uzbekistan would be handed over to the Uzbek government.
“Yes, it is already official,” Henick said. “The military equipment will remain in Uzbekistan, this is already settled.”
Unsurprisingly, the Taliban Defense Ministry responded to Henick’s remarks.
“Any agreement regarding the fate of Afghan helicopters and planes in Uzbekistan is unacceptable,” a Taliban Defense Ministry statement stated.
Taliban Defense Ministry spokesman, Emayatullah Khwarazmi, said in an audio statement released on August 27 that the “government of Uzbekistan is expected to refrain from any dealings in this regard, to consider good neighborly relations, and to make a wise decision by cooperating in the return of Afghanistan’s air force aircraft.”
U.S. officials have made it clear since 2021 that under no circumstance would the aircraft be given to Afghanistan.
During a visit to Dushanbe in June 2022, Commander of the U.S. Central Command, General Michael Kurilla, said the aircraft that arrived in Tajikistan in August 2021 do “not belong to the Taliban,” and added that possibly they would be given to Tajikistan.
It remains unclear what will happen to the aircraft that landed in Tajikistan.
Eric Rudenshiold was the U.S. National Security Council Director for Central Asia under Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Now a Senior Fellow for Central Asian Affairs at the Caspian Policy Center, Rudenshiold has been following the fate of the U.S. aircraft since they left Afghanistan.
He told The Times of Central Asia that for the United States, the question of transferring the planes to Uzbekistan is simple, “Do we need those aircraft in our inventory at this time? No. [T]here aren’t that many aircraft with lethal capabilities that landed in Uzbekistan. We don’t know the exact make-up of the group that they’re going to transfer [to Uzbekistan],” Rudenshiold pointed out, adding most of the planes and helicopters “tend to be more utility aircraft… search and reconnaissance.”
This is important, since the United States has a policy of supplying only non-lethal military equipment to Central Asian states.
From the first days after the planes and helicopters arrived in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, there was speculation they would eventually be handed over to the authorities in those countries.
It is not an unusual deal, according to Rudenshiold. “It’s not something that happens every day… but it happens on a fairly regular basis,” he told TCA, adding that it is not surprising that the negotiating process took some three years.
“These kinds of things take a tremendous amount of time to put together,” he explained, noting there are cooperation agreements that need to be signed, budgetary matters that need to be resolved, and other issues.
During the time that talks with the United States about the future of the aircraft in Uzbekistan were taking place, the Uzbek authorities seem to have readied themselves for the expected Taliban response.
The Uzbek Prime Minister, Abdullo Aripov, visited Kabul on August 17, one week before the announcement of the aircraft transfer. He was the highest ranking official to visit the Afghan capital since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
Aripov attended an Afghan-Uzbek business forum and visited the “Made in Uzbekistan” exhibition of Uzbek goods. More than 30 Memoranda of Understanding worth some $2.5 billion were signed, a large sum for the Taliban government, which is still under sanctions from many countries.
On August 29, two days after the Taliban request for the aircraft in Uzbekistan, Prime Minister Aripov was in Termez with acting Taliban Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar to officially open an international trade center that will serve shipping to and from Afghanistan.
The Taliban will likely continue to claim the aircraft belong to them and shake their fist at the United States, but there is little they can do.
Uzbekistan has become hugely important for the Taliban government in the last three years.
The railway connection at Termez is the northern gate for Afghan trade with goods coming from other Central Asian states and China, as well as shipments of humanitarian aid.
Uzbekistan is the largest exporter of electricity to Afghanistan, and the Uzbek authorities have shown great interest in extending a railway line through Kabul to Pakistan, where it would connect to Pakistan’s railway network leading to the Arabian Sea. Such a railway route would greatly benefit both Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
Also, Afghanistan is still not a stable country.
Despite Taliban assurances that Afghan territory will never be used by anyone to plot or carry out attacks on neighboring countries, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province twice launched rockets toward Uzbekistan in 2022, and once into Tajikistan that same year.
Rudenshiold noted Uzbekistan and the United States have been cooperating on security matters for decades, so it is not unusual these aircraft are “being repurposed in a way that is quite useful, certainly for Uzbekistan, and arguably for regional security.”
