Distant base signals Pentagon's new anti-terrorism strategy

Named after a New York fire chief who was killed when the twin towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed, the Peter J. Ganci airbase is a lonely outpost in the heart of Central Asia. Many of the 1,200 US servicemen who call the base home were flummoxed when news arrived of their deployment to far-off Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic.

'I'd never even heard of it,' admitted Captain Dale Linafelter, a flight safety officer, as he watched a team of engineers installing a new engine into a C130 Hercules cargo plane on the runway at Ganci last week. Yet it is in places such as Kyrgyzstan - a patch of craggy mountains bordering Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China - that the shifting of US military tactics is evident. In the wake of the terrorist attacks on the US in 2001, US forces have fanned out to the world's most remote corners as part of a major shift in thinking at the Pentagon.

More US servicemen are leaving behind the relative comfort of huge garrison bases in Germany, Japan and South Korea for smaller bases in places like Kyrgyzstan, Romania and the Philippines. The idea is to give US forces the ability to strike faster in remote hot spots and deter new threats, such as radical Islamic groups that have carried out attacks in countries like Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Last week, senior defence officials in Washington confirmed that they would soon present US President George W. Bush with proposals for a 'global force-posture realignment'.

The plans are expected to reinforce changes already in motion, such as the withdrawal of 12,500 troops from South Korea by 2006 - about one third of the US contingent stationed there.

Instead, the Pentagon envisages a worldwide network of what analysts call 'lily pads' or 'warm bases': small outposts with weapons and supplies that would stand ready to receive rapid reaction forces if violence flared nearby.