US President Donald John Trump has got involved in a conflict with the Afghan Taliban. The President recently asked the Taliban leadership in Kabul to hand over the Bagram airbase to the US which used to run the base during its 20-year-long war (against terror) in Afghanistan. However, the Taliban has outrightly rejected the US President’s proposal, dismissing his threat that “bad things would happen if this does not come to pass”.

The Bagram airbase is strategically quite important for the US as it is situated near a nuclear power plant of neighbouring China. It was one of the largest US military bases in Afghanistan. The Taliban took control of Bagram in 2021 when the US withdrew its Armed Forces from the war-ravaged country. President Trump, all of a sudden, declared that he would like to get the airbase back during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Rodney Starmer in London in the third week of September 2025.

Speaking at the press conference, the US President said: “We are trying to get it back. We were going to leave Afghanistan, but we were going to leave it with strength and dignity. We were going to keep Bagram Airbase – one of the biggest airbases in the world. We gave it to them for nothing.” In the presence of Prime Minister Starmer, the visiting President stressed: “It is one of the most powerful bases in the world in terms of runway strength and length. You can land anything on there. You can land a planet on top of it.” He added: “We are trying to get it back because they (Taliban) need things from us. But one of the reasons we want that base is, as you know, it is an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons. So, a lot of things are happening.“

According to defence analysts, the US President would have to send at least 10,000 troops to Afghanistan in order to take over the airbase. Interestingly, a White House official, on condition of anonymity, has revealed that the Trump Administration has no plans to capture Bagram in near future.

Meanwhile, Zakir Jalal, a top official of the Afghan Foreign Ministry, has claimed that Kabul is ready to hold talks with Washington DC only to boost trade ties, stressing: “The idea of the US maintaining any military presence in Afghanistan was ‘completely’ rejected during talks between the two sides before the Taliban returned to power.” He wrote on X: “Throughout history, Afghans have not accepted a military presence, and this possibility was completely rejected during the Doha talks and agreement, but the doors are open to other engagement.” Jalal made it clear that the top Taliban leadership would never allow the US Forces to return to Afghanistan.

The Taliban-led Afghan Government has issued a statement, mentioning that not even an inch of Afghan land would be given to the US and the (Taliban) fighters are ready to fight the US for another two decades! For his part, Qāri Fasihuddin Fitrat, an Afghan military commander and the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, said that a “deal over even an inch of Afghanistan’s soil is not possible. We do not need it“. He told the press: “Afghanistan’s independence and territorial integrity are of the utmost importance.”

China, too, has strongly criticised President Trump for trying to maintain US military presence in Afghanistan. On September 19, 2025, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated: “China respects Afghanistan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The future of Afghanistan should be in the hands of Afghan people.“

It may be noted that the erstwhile Soviet Union had built the Bagram airbase during the Cold War in the early 1950s only after receiving a request from the Afghan Government in this regard. The airbase served Soviet operations in the South Asian country for decades until Moscow withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in the late 1980s.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das