Tajikistan Allows Access to 3 Air Bases: DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, Nov. 3 -- The government of Tajikistan today authorized U.S. military engineers to immediately begin assessing conditions at three former Soviet air bases for possible use by U.S. warplanes bombing Afghanistan. The move to establish more bases in close striking distance of battlefields around the Afghan capital of Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, announced here by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Tajik Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov, is the latest sign that the Pentagon wants to rapidly escalate the war on terrorism against front-line Taliban troops.