King Khalid Military City
Encyclopedia
Arabic transliteration
Different approaches and methods for the romanization of Arabic exist. They vary in the way that they address the inherent problems of rendering written and spoken Arabic in the Latin alphabet; they also use different symbols for Arabic phonemes that do not exist in English or other European...
: Medinat Al Malek Khaled Al Askariyah) is a special city in northeastern Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
and about 60 km south to Hafar Al-Batin City
Hafar Al-Batin
Hafar Al-Batin is a Saudi Arabian city in the Eastern Province and located in the Northeastern region. It is located 480 km the north of Riyadh, 90 km from Kuwait border and about 70 from the Iraq border...
, designed and built by the Middle East Division, a unit of the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Army Corps of Engineers, in the 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
and 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
. The consultants were Brown, Daltas, and Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The city was built to provide lodging for several brigade
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...
s of Saudi troops, with a design population of 65,000 people. The city is named after the former Saudi King Khalid bin Abdul Aziz.
Background
King Khalid Military City was one of several Saudi military facilities built between 1950 and 1990 by, or with assistance from, U.S. Army and Air ForceUnited States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
engineers. Others include bases at Taif and Khamis Mushait
Khamis Mushait
Khamis Mushait is a city in south-west Saudi Arabia, located 35 minutes east of Abha, the provincial seat of the Asir province. It is the capital of the Shahran Tribe. Until the 1970s Khamis Mushait was a small town of less than 50,000 servicing the surrounding mild-climate agricultural region...
. The city was one part of an extensive program of U.S-sponsored constructions that included the building of schools, airfields, port
Port
A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....
s, hospitals, and highways. KKMC was the largest of the projects and also the largest single military construction project in the Corp's history. http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/cepa/pubs/feb04/story2.htm The budget was estimated to be variously $1.3, $8, or $20 billion US.
Construction
Planning for the city began in 1974 and, after a new Persian GulfPersian Gulf
The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...
port was built in Ra's al-Mish'ab to handle all the material being brought in, construction began. Built in collaboration with local national engineers and project managers, various phases of the project were completed throughout the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
. The scope of the project was very large with 21 new wells being drilled to provide water, a new port for supplies, 3387 double story family housing units with utility tunnels, and 5 multi-dome mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
s and associated facilities. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/kkmc.htm Also, the world's largest pre-cast concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
plant, built on-site, was used and built by the Samwhan Corporation. http://www.samwhan.co.kr/english/major/over/saudi.html The city was finally completed in 1987.
King Khalid Air Base
King Khalid Air Base, located south of KKMC was used during the 1991 Gulf War as a fighter base. F-117 Nighthawks from the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing (Provisional), operated from the airfield from early August 1990 until April 1991. Also E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft from the 552d Airborne Warning and Control Wing (Provisional); KC-135 Stratotankers and B-52D Stratofortess bombers of the 1700th Strategic Wing (Provisional) along with Military Airlift Command VIP executive aircraft for senior coalition leaders operated from the facility.Gulf War
During the Gulf WarGulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
, KKMC was used to house thousands of American and other coalition soldiers. Its airport was one of the most used during combat operations, along with bases in Dhahran
Dhahran
Dhahran is a city located in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, and is a major administrative center for the Saudi oil industry. Large oil reserves were first identified in the Dhahran area in 1931, and in 1935 Standard Oil of California drilled the first commercially viable oil well...
and Riyadh
Riyadh
Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of Riyadh Province, and belongs to the historical regions of Najd and Al-Yamama. It is situated in the center of the Arabian Peninsula on a large plateau, and is home to 5,254,560 people, and the urban center of a...
, Saudi Arabia.
During the war, KKMC was protected from ballistic missiles by the U.S's Patriot missile
MIM-104 Patriot
The MIM-104 Patriot is a surface-to-air missile system, the primary of its kind used by the United States Army and several allied nations. It is manufactured by the Raytheon Company of the United States. The Patriot System replaced the Nike Hercules system as the U.S. Army's primary High to Medium...
system. On February 21, 1991 Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
fired three Scud missiles at King Khalid Military City, which were reportedly destroyed by Patriot interceptors. http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Pentagon/dodscud.htm
American soldiers during the Persian Gulf War referred to the post by the nickname "The Emerald City".