Apart from its importance as a logistical center, the airport, 12 miles south of Damascus, holds symbolic value.
The city has passed a bond issue to build a logistical center that it hopes will attract railroad jobs.
As executive director of the Northwest Chicagoland Regional Airport, Rockford's sprawling but underused airport, Mr. O'Brien is confident that this region is on the verge of becoming a major logistical center.
"My Boston partner, John Hynes, and I were asked to look at an island in the harbor that they were planning to turn into a city that would be the logistical center of northeast Asia, the way Hong Kong is in the south".
The ultimate result of "graduating" the participants would be a broadening and diversification of Antarctic research--especially at McMurdo Station, the logistical center of the U.S. Antarctic Program USAPP) and home of the incredibly well-outfitted and well-staffed Albert P. Crary Science and Engineering Center.
That base, only 40 odd miles south of Mosul, is expected to serve as a key logistical center and a forward air base for American and coalition planes providing ground support.
Since Sept. 11, officials here and in the United States have been describing the place as Europe's logistical support center for the Qaeda terrorist network.
A computerized system that helps the dispatchers track crews was "giving all kinds of error messages," a frustrated dispatcher said in a report logged on June 18 by the National Interagency Fire Center, a multiagency logistical support center.
For two years, Stefano Dambruoso, a young prosecutor, and his team in Milan have been after a group they are calling Europe's main logistical support center for Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network.
B6 THE INVESTIGATION -- Officials in Italy and the United States have been describing the Islamic Cultural Center and mosque in Milan which has played a recurring role in various terror investigations, as Europe's logistical support center for Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network.
Their Brazilian and Paraguayan counterparts are more ambivalent, however, and say they need more evidence that the area has been used by terror groups in the past as a financing, logistical and recreation center.
