US Fighter Pilots in Bagram Prepare for More Airstrikes

For the fighter pilots at Bagram Airfield, the largest US military base in Afghanistan, US President Donald Trump’s new strategy for the war should mean escalating an already surging air campaign, and possibly including an unrestrained offensive against the Taleban. According to Reuters, pilots in Bagram are preparing for the possibility they’ll be taking the fight to the Taleban in a way they haven’t since the US-led “combat mission” in Afghanistan was called off at the end of 2014. The number of US airstrikes in Afghanistan has already dramatically spiked since Trump took office in January, from 1,074 in all of last year to 2,244 as of August 20 this year. The surge in airstrikes has led the US Air Force units at Bagram to increase their maintenance and intelligence efforts, said F-16 pilot Maj. Abraham Lehman.