Prince Sultan Air Base
military air base located in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia
Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB, Arabic: قاعدة الأمير سلطان الجوية, IATA: AKH, ICAO: OEPS) is a military air base located in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia. It is named after former Saudi defense minister and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
History
There was a large United States presence there during Operations Southern Watch, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. The U.S. presence was predominantly that of multiple United States Air Force (USAF) flying units, augmented by a United States Navy (USN) or United States Marine Corps (USMC) Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler squadron, a Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter squadron with Panavia Tornado F.3s and a French Air Force 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.
Before the September 11 attacks, 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 (RSAF) aircraft in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia should be perceived as there for the Kingdom's defense.
During Operation Southern Watch, aircraft carrying offensive strike ordnance for use against ground targets in Iraq were stationed in Kuwait or aboard aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. United States Air Force, United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, Royal Air Force, and French Air Force aircraft that were based at PSAB primarily consisted of airborne early warning, reconnaissance, air refueling, 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 before 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 Air National Guard (ANG) and Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, and Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker 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.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Prince Sultan Air Base” as military air base located in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4116941. Authority coordinates are 24.063, 47.580. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Prince Sultan Air Base” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.