U.S. government has taken advantage of the fact that Turkmenistan is a closed and autocratic society to quietly get away with shipping more than just humanitarian goods to Afghanistan. He also cites reports of incidents involving U.S. planes flying from Afghanistan to Turkmenistan without dispatchers' permission.

U.S. freight transited through Ashgabat is in fact military in nature and even constitutes criminal contraband. Airport employees claim they saw armored vehicles, combat helicopters and crates of ammunition.

The U.S. has gained access to use almost all the military airfields of Turkmenistan, including the airport in Nebit-Dag near the Iranian border, which was reconstructed at American expense. In September 2004, at the Mary-2 airfield, U.S. military experts appeared and began reconstructing the facility with the help of Arab construction companies.

Turkmenistan continues to serve as one of the major transport links of the Northern Distribution Network to supply NATO forces in Afghanistan. Turkmenistan is a country the falls under U.S. law on defense allocations for 2010 which encourages active cooperation with the countries of Central Asia to extend the delivery routes across their territories.

An American military contingent is located in Ashgabat to oversee the operations related to refueling of military airplanes.