Free Republic

Seoul (CNN)ISIS has collected information on 77 U.S. and NATO air force facilities around the world and is calling on supporters to attack them, according to South Korea's intelligence agency. The terror group has also released information on individuals in 21 countries, including the personal details of one employee of a South Korean welfare organization, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a statement Sunday.

Yesterday, unnamed administration officials leaked the good news that Turkey would allow us to use their air bases to attack IS forces in Syria and Iraq: Also Sunday, officials confirmed that Turkey agreed to let U.S. and coalition fighter aircraft launch operations against ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria from Turkish bases, including Incirlik Air Base in the south. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who has been traveling in South America, has said the U.S. wanted access to the Turkish bases. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private talks between the Americans...

Yesterday, Barack Obama stated, “Turkey needs to be involved in coalition against ISIS.” On Thursday Turkey said it will not allow the US to use its airbases to fight ISIS.

Operatives linked to Iran tried to kill foreign diplomats, including Israelis and Americans, in at least seven countries over 13 months, the Washington Post reported. New evidence uncovered by investigators in four countries linked the assassination attempts to either Iran-backed Hezbollah militants or operatives based inside Iran, the Post reported Monday, citing U.S. and Middle Eastern security officials. The officials reportedly said that the assassination attempts stopped in early spring, when Iran began to take a softer tone with the West. Shortly after, Iranian officials formally accepted a proposal to resume negotiations with six world powers on proposals to limit...

Azerbaijan has granted Israel access to airbases in its territory along Iran's northern border for potential use in a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, a report published Wednesday in Foreign Policy magazine quoted senior US administration officials as saying. "The Israelis have bought an airfield," an official said, "and the airfield is called Azerbaijan." Even if Israel doesn't use the fields for a direct airstrike on Iran, Azerbaijan could still prove useful for Jerusalem's interests in the region. The bases could be used as a jumping point for IDF search-and-rescue units, the report quoted a US intelligence official as...

New generations of enemy missiles, and a willingness to use them, could put air bases under siege like never before. Operating from air bases under threat of missile attack may become one of the most important keys to projecting US airpower in the years ahead. For all its expeditionary experience, it has been decades since the Air Force has so intently focused on this problem. Now, top leadership is again taking it seriously. "The attack against the naval base at Pearl Harbor was recorded in history as a day which will live in infamy," said Air Force Chief of Staff...

Governments with foreign military bases tend to shy away from publicity about their colonial outposts, and recent events in the post-Soviet space shine an unwelcome spotlight on US and Russian military establishments The US Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan and Russia’s lease extension on Ukraine’s historic port of Sevastopol are presently earning much unwanted attention, which is serving to agitate the local populations in both countries. Furthermore, Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenko, who provided sanctuary to ousted Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has used the opportunity to berate Russia for failing to pay for its early warning missile base near Baranavichy and...

Several times I pointed out how the airbase of Mount Pleasant on the British Falklands Islands is so important to the defense of the small South Atlantic Dependency. As such it is an amazingly economical aircraft carrier substitute, with a mere 4 air defense fighters and the potential for many more in a crisis. Andrew Oh-Wilekke, the Washington Park Prophet, would like to see the US build a similar type airbase somewhere in the Gulf, but on a grander scale, to take the place of its shrinking numbers of enormously expensive Big Decks: There is a very good chance that...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is considering keeping a key military air base in Bosnia-Herzegovina after NATO wraps up its peace mission there as part of a new force projection concept designed to facilitate the war on terror, military officials said. The plan, whose final approval at the Pentagon is still pending, was disclosed to members of Congress amid growing concern that Bosnia may become a "safe haven" for al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic militant groups that could use it as a base for operations in Europe and elsewhere. Major General James Darden, a senior representative of the US European Command, told...

NEW DELHI, MARCH 25: Pakistan, which the US has decided to designate as ‘‘a major non-NATO ally’’, has provided five airbases to US forces and landing rights to their fighter aircraft anywhere in the country during emergency as part of its cooperation in the fight against Taliban and Al Qaeda. Pakistan has also granted two-thirds of its airspace as air corridors to the US-led coalition forces. ‘‘By doing so, Pakistan has had to reschedule or redirect many of the commercial flights,’’ Pakistani daily The News reported quoting a report of the US central command. It said that Pakistan has been...

SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany (AP) - Germans living on the edge of expanding U.S. air bases in Germany are sharpening their opposition to the threat of war against Iraq as they protest the already unpopular growth of the bases. Hans Gunther Schneider, who can watch F-16 fighter and A-10 attack jets take off and land at Spangdahlem Air Base from the kitchen window of his home in Binsfeld, has spent several years fighting an expansion of the base planned to compensate for the loss of landing strips at Rhein-Main Air Base, scheduled to close in 2005. The threat of a...

<p>UPON learning from newspaper reports in recent days that the Pentagon is planning to considerably reduce its dependence on bases in Saudi Arabia, many Americans doubtless bristled — after all, such a pullback is exactly what terrorist Usama bin Laden has demanded.</p>