Mountain Home Air Force Base is home to the 366th Fighter Wing, colloquially known as The Gunfighters, and more 50 F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft and 12 Republic of Singapore Air Force F-15SG aircraft. (Daniel Barnhorst/U.S. Air Force)
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the U.S. will host a new Qatari air force facility in Idaho.
“We’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatar Emiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho,” Hegseth said alongside Qatari Minister of Defense Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the Pentagon. “The location will be host to a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots to enhance our combined training, increase the lethality, interoperability.”
There are no foreign military bases in the U.S., but some foreign militaries do maintain a presence for training. Singapore’s air force also has a presence at Mountain Home Air Force Base in southwestern Idaho.
The Qatar project dates to 2017, when the United States signed a $12 billion deal that gave Qatar “36 aircraft, their associated weapons systems, U.S.-based training, maintenance support equipment and logistics support,” The Idaho Statesman reported in 2022.
The announcement came as Hegseth thanked Qatar for its role in peace talks between Israel and Hamas.
Israel and Hamas agreed Wednesday to pause fighting in Gaza so that the remaining hostages could be freed in the coming days in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, accepting elements of a plan put forward by President Donald Trump and his administration that would represent the biggest breakthrough in months in the devastating 2-year-old war.
The war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, many of them civilians, and took 251 hostage. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, devastated Gaza and upended global politics. The war has sparked worldwide protests and brought widespread allegations of genocide that Israel denies.
“No one other than President Trump could have achieved the peace — what we believe will be a lasting peace — in Gaza, and Qatar played a substantial role from the beginning, working with our folks to make sure that came about,” Hegseth said.
President Trump signed an executive order last month “assuring the security of the state of Qatar” following Israel’s decision to carry out a military strike in Qatar’s capital city of Doha, where the vast majority of Qataris live.
“The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” the executive order reads.
The U.S. in May accepted a Boeing 747 jetliner from Qatar.
“The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the president of the United States,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said at the time.
