DUSHANBE. Dec 11 (Interfax-AVN) - The Kulyab airport in Tajikistan is getting ready to receive aircraft of the U.S., French and Italian Air Forces involved in search, rescue and humanitarian actions in Afghanistan, sources in the Tajik government and law-enforcement bodies told Interfax-Military News Agency on Tuesday.
About 35 aircraft of France, Italy and the United States will be temporarily based in Kulyab, the sources said.
The airport will be operational round the clock in any weather thanks to navigation equipment delivered by French military specialists. About 1,500 people are working at the airport at the moment.
A source in the Northern Alliance told Interfax-AVN that about 30 U.S. helicopters had landed in the vicinity of the Parsi airfield in Pakistan. Apparently this is a part of preparations for a new stage of the special operation in the area of Tora Bora and Kandahar, the source said.
According to him, Taliban groups still putting up resistance in northern Afghanistan have effectively stopped radio communication. "They have switched to the radio silence mode or the situation does not allow them to use radios anymore because planes of the anti-terrorist coalition are fitted with equipment registering any radio sources," the man said.