transition to the Rockwell B-1 Lancer. In October 1993, the 2nd Wing was redesignated as the 2nd Bomb Wing when the 71st Air Refueling Squadron and its KC-135A/Qs were reassigned to the Air Mobility Command. A third B-52H squadron was assigned to the wing on 1 July 1994 when the 11th Bomb Squadron was activated at Barksdale. The mission of the 11th BS is that of a Formal Training Unit (FTU) for the B-52H. 1990s combat operations Barksdale became the focus of attention once again in September 1996 as two of its B-52s fired 13 AGM-86C CALCM missiles on surface-to-air missile sites and air defense radars in Iraq. Dubbed Operation Desert Strike, the mission came in response to Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein's attacks on Kurds in northern Iraq and was the first combat employment of the B-52H in history. In only a span of 80 hours, Barksdale B-52s and support personnel deployed forward to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, carried out the strike against Iraqi targets and returned to Guam. Fourteen months later, in November 1997, personnel and aircraft deployed from Barksdale to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean by order of U.S. president Bill Clinton. They joined forces already in the region in response to a renewed bout of provocations and threats made by Saddam Hussein. Remaining at Diego Garcia until June 1998, Barksdale's forces bolstered the ability to defend the security of the region against possible aggression by Iraq and to accomplish specific military objectives if a diplomatic solution to the confrontation could not be achieved. Six B-52s and personnel from Barksdale were again deployed to Diego Garcia in November 1998 becoming part of the 2nd Air Expeditionary Group. Seven bombers and about 180 people deployed in response to Iraq's refusal to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors. Although president Clinton called off strikes after Hussein's last-minute concessions to meet U.N. demands, Iraq's cooperation continued to deteriorate. U.S. military forces, including Barksdale's B-52s, launched a sustained series of air strikes against Iraq shortly after midnight 17 December 1998. The three-day-long campaign, dubbed Operation Desert Fox, followed the latest in a series of roadblocks by the Iraqi government against weapons inspections conducted by the U.N. Special Commission. From March to June 1999, ten B-52s and personnel of the 2nd Bomb Wing played a prominent role in halting the brutal Serb expulsion of ethnic Albanians from