Tall Afar Air Base

Tall Afar Air Base is a former Iraqi Air Force base in the Nineveh Governorate of Iraq. It was captured by Coalition forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

Overview
Tall Afar Air Base was a primary air base for the Iraqi Air Force. At each end of the main 10,000-foot runway are a dozen hardened aircraft shelters known as "Trapezoids" or "Yugos" which were built by Yugoslavian contractors some time prior to 1985 with multiple runways and taxiways, patterned after their Russian counterparts.

The base was heavily attacked by Coalition airpower during Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003, and seized by Coalition ground forces.

Efforts are underway to repair the nearly obsolete water pumping system that provides water for over 325,000 citizens of Northern Iraq. In the interim, soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) have contracted 32 trucks to carry over 10,000 liters of water every day to villages that the water system is unable to reach. 101st AAD civil affairs and engineering soldiers are working to fix the water system, which draws its water supply directly from the Freedom (formerly Saddam) Lake in Northern Iraq. With the broken down water pumps, many areas around northern Iraq are nearly dry without the water trucks. The drivers of the water trucks meet every day at the tactical operations center in the northern Iraqi city of Tall Afar before getting into their trucks. The drivers and their trucks are a temporary solution to the water distribution problem until long-term solutions can be put into effect.

A car bomber attacked a US military barracks in northern Iraq on 9 December 2003. A total of 61 soldiers were injured. Five of the wounded were medivaced to hospital, four to Baghdad and one to Germany. The other 51 soldiers had nicks, cuts, bruises and some broken bones. Guards at the gate and in a watchtower opened fire on the vehicle and moments later it blew up. The bomb left a large crater at the gate's entryway in the town of Talafar, 30 miles west of the northern city of Mosul. Tall Afar is mainly populated by Shiite Turkmen and had been calm since the US-led coalition ousted Hussein in April 2003. It remains in use by the United States Army as Forward Operating base Tall Afar.