Prince Sultan Air Base is an air base located at Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia. There was formerly a large United States presence there. Location: 24°03'48"N 47°34'50"E. It is the main base for the Royal Saudi Air Force 5 E-3 AWACS surveillance aircraft, seven air refueling tanker aircraft and one TASS recon aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Sultan_Air_BaseU.S. officials transferred control of portions of Prince Sultan Air Base to Saudi officials at a ceremony on Aug. 26, 2003. The U.S. pullout was scheduled to be completed then early September 2003.
The Prince Sultan Air Base is located 80km south of Riyadh. During the decade following Operation Desert Storm, it was host to upwards of 4,500 US military personnel and an undisclosed number of aircraft. During mid-2003 the roughly 4,500 US troops at Prince Sultan redeployed from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, leaving about 500 in Saudi Arabia, primarily at Eskan Village.
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During Desert Shield, coalition forces found it necessary to build what was then called Al Kharj from scratch. From October 1990 to March 1991, a combined 435-person RED HORSE squadron was involved in more than 25 major projects, valued at more than $14.6 million. These included bedding down the largest air base in theater (in terms of number of aircraft -- capable of bedding down five fighter squadrons) at Al Kharj Air Base. Erecting 17 K-Span facilities and carving out roads, they created a theater munitions storage depot. RED HORSE, augmented by the 4th CES from Seymour Johnson AFB, NC, and contract personnel, hauled 200,000 cubic yards of clay to build a foot-thick clay foundation for tent city. Eventually, they erected a tent city, set up four kitchens, an air transportable hospital, six K-span structures, and support facilities. They built munitions storage areas and bladder berms, completed utility distribution systems, and installed mobile aircraft arresting systems. In less than two months in 1990, Al Kharj changed from a base without buildings and only a ramp and runways, to one with tents to support dining halls, hangars, a hospital, electric power generators, and services for an expanded population of Air Force personnel. Al Kharj was ready for aircraft early in January 1991, and by the beginning of the war was home to 4,900 Air Force personnel.
As some troops redeployed, additional personnel continued to arrive in March and April 1991. Reserve and Air National Guard Prime BEEF teams deployed to Al Kharj and King Fahd, respectively, to help close down the sites.
Attacks on the Office of the Program Manager/Saudi Arabia National Guard (OPM/SANG) in November 1995 and on the Khobar Towers living compound in June 1996 forever changed the way in which the Armed Forces will regard terrorism in the Persian Gulf. Both bombings also served to prove that regional security dynamics can have an impact on US forces deployed in the area. To deter and prevent hostile acts, air activities were moved from King Abd Al-Aziz air base in Dhahran and Riyadh air base to a compound inside a much larger tightly secured, 80-square-mile Royal Saudi Air Force Prince Sultan Air Base adjacent to the city of Al Kharj, south of Riyadh. The rationale for this shift was to move forces from populated areas, where perpetrators of terrorist acts could easily disappear, to locales where space and terrain could be used to advantage.
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Following Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, US forces began to pull out of Prince Sultan Air Base. On April 28 the CAOC was shifted from PSAB to Al-Udeid in Qatar. On April 29, Sec. Donald Rumsfeld announced that US forces would begin pulling out of Saudi Arabia and that forces in the country would be diverted to other locations. Rear Admiral David Nichols, the deputy commander of the air operation centre stated that much of the assets associated with the 363rd AEW would be relocated by the end of the Summer 2003.
U.S. officials transferred control of portions of Prince Sultan Air Base to Saudi officials at a ceremony on Aug. 26, 2003. The ceremony also marked the inactivation of the 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing. The base was home to about 60,000 coalition forces during the past seven years. At the height of OIF, there were more than 5,000 troops and about 200 coalition aircraft based here.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/prince-sultan.htmDuring Operation Desert Shield from August 1990, preparing for the Gulf War, the United States sent a troop contingent to Saudi Arabia promising to remove them once the war ended. After the war, the troops remained, helping secure the country.
Osama bin Laden began calling for the withdrawal of the troops, stating that the US was occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of its territories as a reference to the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, homes of the prophet Mohammad. The U.S. rejected the characterization of its presence as an "occupation," noting that the government of Saudi Arabia consented to the presence of troops. Many in the U.S., the Arab world and elsewhere saw the presence of U.S. troops as supporting the House of Saud, the rule of which is controversial.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_Saudi_Arabia
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