Forward Operating Base A forward operating base (FOB) is any secured forward operational level military position, commonly a military base, that is used to support strategic goals and tactical objectives. A FOB may contain an airbase, hospital, machine shop, and othe ...

Chapman, also known as Camp Chapman, was a U.S. installation situated in Khost province,

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

, on an airstrip 2 miles east of

Khost Khōst () is the capital of Khost Province in Afghanistan. It is the largest city in the southeastern part of the country, and also the largest in the region of Loya Paktia. To the south and east of Khost lie Waziristan and Kurram Agency, Kurram i ...

. It was opened by the United States Army and extensively used by the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

. Prior to the arrival of U.S. forces in 2001 it had been used by the Afghan Armed Forces. The site was also used by the

and was near Forward Operating Base Salerno, a large U.S. Army base. The base was named for Sergeant First Class Nathan Chapman, the first U.S. soldier killed by enemy fire during the Afghanistan war, in 2002. Chapman was killed while fighting alongside the CIA.

History

The CIA's base in Khost was set up at the beginning of the U.S.-led offensive against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in 2001, and began as an improvised center for operations. A military base at the beginning, it was later transformed into a CIA base, a U.S. official said. According to a U.S. military source, Forward Operating Base Chapman was also used as a base for the Khost

Provincial Reconstruction Team A Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) was a unit introduced by the United States government, consisting of military officers, diplomats, and reconstruction subject matter experts, working to support reconstruction efforts in unstable states. PRT ...

(PRT), a military-led development group. According to an individual who was in the PRT and took part in the relocation; this team left in 2011 and moved to FOB Salerno. In recent years, the base, one of the most secretive and highly guarded locations in Afghanistan, evolved into a major counterterrorism hub of the CIA's paramilitary Special Activities Division, used for joint operation with CIA, military special operations forces and Afghan allies, and had a housing compound for U.S. intelligence officers. On Wednesday, December 30, 2009, the Camp Chapman attack was executed by suicide bomber Humam Khalil al-Balawi who was a Jordanian

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

loyal to al-Qaeda-linked Islamist extremists. Seven people employed by or affiliated with the CIA, including the chief of the base, Jennifer Lynn Matthews as well as a Jordanian intelligence officer, died in the attack. It remains the second-deadliest incident ever for the CIA after the

1983 United States embassy bombing The April 18, 1983, United States Embassy bombing was a suicide bombing on the Embassy of the United States, Beirut, Embassy of the United States in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 32 Lebanese, 17 Americans, and 14 visitors and passers-by. The vict ...

. Almost three years later, on December 26, 2012, a suicide bomber, possibly with ties to the

Afghan Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) , leader2_title = Gov ...

(who claimed responsibility via a spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claiming those who served American forces at the base were the target) and/or the

Haqqani network The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanis ...

, killed three Afghans (their status was not specified) who were outside the perimeter of the base, which is near a military airport. U.S. bases in Khost, in particular Camp Salerno, have frequently been targeted by insurgents. In most cases, however, suicide attackers do not succeed in getting past the main entrance of a base. According to U.S. officials, Forward Operating Base Chapman appears to have implemented less stringent security measures than other U.S. military bases, aiming at establishing trust with informants. Subjecting informants to mistrust and excessive suspicion would reduce the amount of information received from them. In 2021, in the lead-up to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban twice targeted the base. In the first attack rockets landed nearby wounding seven civilians. During the second attack a water tower on the base was hit, but no U.S. personnel were hit.

References

{{Reflist Military installations of the United States in Afghanistan Installations of the Central Intelligence Agency Military installations closed in 2021