US Air Force clears rainforest in Micronesia for new Indo-Pacific airfields

(MENAFN) According to a senior commander, the US Air Force is clearing large areas of rainforest in Micronesia to create room for new airfields as part of preparations to strengthen American forces in the Indo-Pacific.

General Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of the Pacific Air Forces, informed journalists at an event sponsored by the Air and Space Forces Association on work to renovate abandoned US air facilities, including one from the Second World War on the small island of Tinian near Guam.

“We're going to be clearing out the jungle [on Tinian, and] we're going to be resurfacing some of the surfaces there so that we will have a fairly large and very functional Agile Combat Employment base, an additional base to be able to operate from and we have several other projects like that around the region that we'll be getting after,” Wilsbach stated on Monday.

The general noted that the new facilities will be a part of a "hub-and-spoke" network throughout Asia designed to "deter" Beijing, and that the Air Force had requested increased cash from Congress in its 2024 budget request to achieve the target.

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