The headquarters of the U.S. 10th Mountain Division arrived at the air base, under Major General Franklin L. Hagenbeck, on 12 December 2001 to function as the Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) (Forward).

[7] On 13 February 2002, Mikolashek ordered Hagenbeck to move CFLCC (Forward) to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and two days later the headquarters was redesignated as Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) Mountain.

[8] Seven thousand United States Department of Defense personnel were located at the base, also known as K2 and "Camp Stronghold Freedom", between 2001 and 2005.

On 29 July 2005, amid strained relations caused by the May 2005 unrest in Uzbekistan; a prelude to another Color Revolution, the United States was told to vacate the base within six months.

[10][11] In November 2001, the United States Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine-Europe performed an environmental baseline survey at the base.

[13] According to a 2015 Army study, 61 of the K2 veterans had been diagnosed with cancer or died of the disease, not counting the special operations forces.

[14] On 18 November 2020, the US House Committee on Oversight and Reform held a hearing on environmental health risks at the base.