COB Basra

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Overview

Contingency Operating Base Basra occupied Basra International Airport, a fortified airfield about 10 miles from Basra city that served as the main British base in southern Iraq from the 2003 invasion until 2009. The airport had been built in the 1980s, and a planned new terminal was abandoned at the outbreak of the 1991 Gulf War; facilities were refurbished under a USAID contract after 2003, and civil flights resumed in June 2004.

Between 2003 and 2009 the Royal Air Force's No. 903 Expeditionary Air Wing operated from the airport with Nimrod, C-130J and BAe 125 aircraft and Chinook, Sea King, Lynx, Gazelle, Puma and Merlin helicopters. U.S. Army AH-64 Apaches and Royal Danish Air Force helicopters also deployed there at times.

Until early 2007 British and coalition forces were spread across several sites in and around Basra city, including the Old State Building, the Shatt al-Arab Hotel, Shaibah Logistics Base and Basra Palace. As each was handed to Iraqi control during 2007, ending with Basra Palace on 3 September 2007, all UK and coalition forces in south-eastern Iraq consolidated at the Contingency Operating Base at Basra Air Station. After the handover of Shaibah, British internees were held in a purpose-built Divisional Internment Facility at the air station.

On 31 March 2009 Major General Andy Salmon transferred authority at the airport to U.S. Major General Michael Oates, and the U.S. 10th Mountain Division hoisted its colors in place of the British division banner, marking the end of British authority in Basra. Most of the 4,100 British troops left by the end of May 2009.

The base then served as headquarters of Multi-National Division-South and later U.S. Division-South, hosting military police, fires, aviation, medical and explosive ordnance disposal units that trained Iraqi police and security forces. A rocket attack on 16 July 2009 killed three U.S. military policemen of the 34th Infantry Division.

Timeline

Units stationed at COB Basra

Units documented in public sources as based at or operating from COB Basra. This list is not complete; units rotated frequently and many smaller elements were never reported. Veterans can add their unit on the message board below.

Notable events and facts

• The old Basra airport, about 6 miles east of the current one on the Shatt al-Arab, had a 1937-1938 Imperial Airways terminal designed to resemble an imperial palace.
• After Shaibah's handover, the UK held 86 individuals at the Divisional Internment Facility at Basra Air Station at the end of July 2007.
• Chief of the Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup attended the March 2009 handover ceremony, where 179 UK personnel were noted to have died in Iraq since 2003.
• A 16 July 2009 rocket attack on the base killed three U.S. soldiers; more than 400 people later ran in their memory.
• In November 2009 sections of concrete T-walls tipped over and damaged some barracks at the base.

Photographs

Message board: COB Basra

Served here? Share a memory, name your unit, or send a correction. Posts are reviewed before they appear. The full community board is on the Message Board page.

Sources

1. Basra International Airport (Wikipedia). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basra_International_Airport
2. House of Commons Defence Committee, UK land operations in Iraq 2007, chapter 4. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmdfence/110/11008.htm
3. British army hands control of Basra to US forces (The Guardian, 31 March 2009). https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/mar/31/british-hands-command-basra-us
4. Household Cavalry 2008 journal (search excerpt). https://issuu.com/rhgd.regsec/docs/h_cav_2008_complete.compressed/9
5. Wikimedia Commons file descriptions for Contingency Operating Base Basra. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22Contingency+Operating+Base+Basra%22&ns