H-4 Air Base () is a

Royal Jordanian Air Force The Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF; Arabic: سلاح الجو الملكي الأردني, ''Silāḥ al-Jaww al-Malakī al-ʾUrdunī'') is the aerial warfare branch of the Jordanian Armed Forces. Founded in 1955, the RJAF serves as the primary ...

base located near Ruwaished in

Mafraq Governorate Mafraq ( ''Muhāfaẓat al-Mafraq'', local dialects ''Mafrag'' or ''Mafra' '') is one of the governorates of Jordan, located to the north-east of Amman, capital of Jordan. It has a population of 637,000 (2021 estimate) making up 5.8% of Jordan's ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

Overview

This airfield was built to support the H4 oil pumping station of the

Kirkuk–Haifa oil pipeline The Kirkuk-Mediterranean pipeline was a mixed 10/12-inch twin crude oil pipeline from the oil fields in Kirkuk, located in the former Ottoman vilayet of Mosul in northern Iraq, through Transjordan to Haifa in mandatory Palestine (now in the te ...

built by the

Iraq Petroleum Company The Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), formerly known as the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), is an oil company that had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq between 1925 and 1961. It was jointly owned by some of the world ...

between 1932 and 1934 in the

Emirate of Transjordan The Emirate of Transjordan (), officially the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a British protectorate established on 11 April 1921,World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

as the Advanced Headquarters for operations against the rebels in Iraq during the

Anglo-Iraqi War The Anglo-Iraqi War was a British-led Allies of World War II, Allied military campaign during the Second World War against the Kingdom of Iraq, then ruled by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani who had seized power in the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état with assista ...

. The Airbase is now operated by the

. Between November 2014 and January 2015, the United States began positioning

MQ-9 Reaper The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper (sometimes called Predator B) is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, one component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS)) capable of remotely controlled or autonomous flight operations, developed by General Atomi ...

UAVs An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Drone ...

at the base. The base also houses AH-1F Cobras, believed to be from the 10th and 12th Squadrons of the Royal Jordanian Air Force, and a Cessna 208B Caravan from the 15th Squadron and the

Air Tractor 802i An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosphere ...

from the 25th Squadron

References

{{Airports in Jordan Airports in Jordan Military installations of Jordan