Ayn al Asad is an Iraqi Armed Forces base located in Al Anbar Governorate (also called Anbar province) of western Iraq. It was originally known as Qadisiyah Airbase. It was the second largest US military airbase in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Until January 2010, it was the home of the II Marine Expeditionary Force/Multi-National Force West. Other major tenants have included the 3rd ID's 4th IBCT, 82nd Airborne Division Advise & Assist Brigade, 332nd Medical Brigade, 321st Sustainment Brigade, Vertical Onboard Delivery Detachment-1 (VOD-1), VAQ-141, Navy Customs Battalion Juliet, elements of the Iraqi Army's 7th Division, and the United States Air Force (USAF). On December 26, 2018, President Donald Trump and his wife Melania visited the soldiers stationed at the base. On November 23, 2019, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen, visited the troops ahead of Thanksgiving. On January 8, 2020, the air base came under an Iranian ballistic missile attack in retaliation for the killing of Quds leader Qasem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike a few days earlier. Geography The sprawling base is located within the districts of Haditha and Hīt of the largely Sunni Al Anbar Governorate, about west of Baghdad and west of the village of Khan al-Baghdadi. The airbase is divided by Wādī al Asadī (وادي الاسدي), a wadi whose course passes through the oasis along the base's western edge and then continues eastward, emptying into the Euphrates River at Khan al Baghdadi. This oasis is locally referred to as "Abraham's Well". The ‘Ayn al Asad spring surfaces within the base and flows into the Wādī al Asadī. Geologically, the base resides in the Al-Ḥammād sector of the Syrian Desert, composed mostly of a rock and gravel steppe. History Qadisiyah Airbase The base was originally named Qadisiyah Airbase (قاعدة القادسية الجوية), a reference to the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah (c. 636). Qadisiyah AB was one of five new air bases built in Iraq as part of their Project "Super-Base", launched in 1975 as a response to the lessons learned during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973. The base was built sometime between 1981 and 1987 by a consortium of Yugoslavian companies under contract to the government of Iraq. Two Yugoslav government agencies led the project. The FDSP (Federal Directorate of Supply and Procurement) acted as the project manager and Aeroengineering acted as the project engineer. Known as 'Project 202-B' and 'Project 1100',