Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB, , ) is a military air base located in the

closed city A closed city or town is a settlement where travel or residency restrictions are applied. Historically, the construction of closed cities became increasingly common after the beginning of the Cold War, particularly in the Soviet Union. Since t ...

of Al Kharj,

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

History

There was a large

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

presence there during Operations Southern Watch, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. The U.S. presence was predominantly that of multiple

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

(USAF) flying units, augmented by a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

(USN) or

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expeditionar ...

(USMC) Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler squadron, a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

(RAF) fighter squadron with

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F.3s and a

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fighter squadron with Dassault Mirage 2000s, Mirage F1 CR plus a Boeing C-135RF Stratotanker air refueling aircraft. Following the attack on USAF facilities at Khobar Towers in Dharan in 1996, all USAF activities at that location were relocated to PSAB. 363d-f-15-princesultan

Before the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, per agreement with the Saudi Arabian government, all U.S. and Allied aircraft stationed at PSAB were to be of a "defensive" versus "offensive" nature. This was due to Arab sensitivities that non-

Royal Saudi Air Force The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF; ) is the military aviation, aviation branch of the Armed Forces of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian Armed Forces. The Royal Saudi Air Force currently has wings, squadrons, and a special forces unit dedicated to comba ...

(RSAF) aircraft in the Kingdom of

should be perceived as being there for the defense of the Kingdom. During Operation Southern Watch, this required aircraft carrying offensive strike ordnance for use against ground targets in Iraq to be stationed in Kuwait or aboard aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.

, and

aircraft that were based at PSAB primarily consisted of airborne early warning,

reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

air refueling Aerial refueling (American English, en-us), or aerial refuelling (British English, en-gb), also referred to as air refueling, in-flight refueling (IFR), air-to-air refueling (AAR), and tanking, is the process of transferring aviation fuel from ...

, electronic warfare, suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and air-to-air fighter aircraft, along with transient airlift aircraft. U.S. squadrons came under the operational control of the, formerly 4404th Wing (Provisional), 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing (363 AEW) at PSAB, with associated squadrons or detachments prior to 11 Sep 2001 rotated in and out from their home bases in Europe, the United States or the Pacific on a 90-day to 6-month basis. During Operation Southern Watch, in addition to Active Component aircraft, the USAF made extensive use of

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(ANG) and

Air Force Reserve Command The Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) is a MAJCOM, major command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force, with its headquarters at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. It is the federal Air Reserve Component (ARC) of the U.S. Air Force, consisting of ...

(AFRC) McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle,

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and

Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker is an American military aerial refueling tanker aircraft that was developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, alongside the Boeing 707 airliner. It has a narrower fuselage and is shorter than the 707. Boeing gave ...

aircraft and associated personnel on rotational assignments to PSAB. The United States Navy, Navy Reserve and United States Marine Corps also employed EA-6B aircraft from PSAB as well. In August and early September 1998, Joint Task Force Southwest Asia (JTF-SWA) and its associated Coalition Air Operations Center (CAOC) were in the process of relocating from the Eskan Village complex in Riyadh to PSAB concurrent with construction of a more modern and expanded CAOC at PSAB. The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing accelerated this movement, so that subsequent command and control of all Coalition air operations for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom were executed from PSAB, before 11 September 2001. During the

War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...

, the Saudi government refused to allow the United States to use its air bases in Saudi Arabia to launch offensive air operations against the

Islamic Emirate of 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 ...

and

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, but did allow them to use Prince Sultan Air Base to coordinate offensive air operations of air combat operations launched from other countries. In mid-2003, all U.S. operations at PSAB began migrating to

Al Udeid Air Base Al Udeid Air Base () is one of two military bases southwest of Doha, Qatar, also known as Abu Nakhlah Airport (). It houses the Qatar Emiri Air Force, United States Air Force, Royal Air Force, and other foreign forces. It is host to a forward h ...

Doha Doha ( ) is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor (city), Al Khor and Lusail, it is home to most of the country's population. It ...

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

. Between 2003 and 2005 Vickers VC10s from No. 101 Squadron RAF were based here in support of Operation Telic before moving to RAF Al Udeid (a section of the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar). In October 2019, 2,000 U.S. troops joined approximately 700 service members already stationed at the air base, along with deploying B-1B bombers, F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and Patriot missile batteries. The new troop buildup followed several attacks on oil tankers by

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

in the

Gulf of Oman The Gulf of Oman or Sea of Oman ( ''khalīj ʿumān''; ''daryâ-ye omân''), also known as Gulf of Makran or Sea of Makran ( ''khalīj makrān''; ''daryâ-ye makrān''), is a gulf in the Indian Ocean that connects the Arabian Sea with th ...

. The 378th Air Expeditionary Wing was activated at Prince Sultan on 17 December 2019, with the Air Force stating the wing's mission is to 'provide strategic depth and increased defensive support while sustaining regional presence to promote peace through deterrence'.

Current use

Facilities

The air base resides at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of above

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. It has two

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

s designated 17L/R/35L/R with an asphalt surface measuring . The base currently uses hundreds of tents as temporary housing, though there are plans to have the tents replaced with trailers and more permanent structures. The US Air Force is responsible for pest management on the base.

References

External links

Prince Sultan Air Base
at GlobalSecurity.org

at CNN
Prince Sultan Air Base
at AFCENT
Prince Sultan Air Base
at Defense Visual Information Distribution hub {{authority control Airports in Saudi Arabia Royal Saudi Air Force Military installations of Saudi Arabia Installations of the United States Air Force in Saudi Arabia

History

Current use

Facilities

See also

References

External links