King Khalid Military City (KKMC) (Arabic: مدينة الملك خالد العسكرية; transliterated: Medinat Al Malek Khaled Al Askariyah) is a special city in northeastern Saudi Arabia and about 60 km south to Hafar Al-Batin City, designed and built by the Middle East Division, a unit of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the 1970s and 1980s. The consultants were Brown, Daltas, and Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The city was built to provide lodging for several brigades of Saudi troops, with a design population of 65,000 people. The city is named after the former Saudi King Khalid bin Abdul Aziz.
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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 Force engineers. Others include bases at Taif and Khamis Mushait. The city was one part of an extensive program of U.S-sponsored constructions that included the building of schools, airfields, ports, hospitals, and highways. KKMC was the largest of the projects and also the largest single military construction project in the Corp's history. [1] The budget was estimated to be variously $1.3, $8, or $20 billion US.
Planning for the city began in 1974 and, after a new Persian Gulf 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. 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 mosques and associated facilities. [2] Also, the world's largest pre-cast concrete plant, built on-site, was used and built by the Samwhan Corporation. [3] The city was finally completed in 1987.
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.
During the Gulf War, 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 and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
During the war, KKMC was protected from ballistic missiles by the U.S's Patriot missile system. On February 21, 1991 Iraq fired three Scud missiles at King Khalid Military City, which were reportedly destroyed by Patriot interceptors. [4]
American soldiers during the Persian Gulf War referred to the post by the nickname "The Emerald City".
At its peak, hundreds of US Army Corps engineers and personnel made KKMC their home, and a small American city evolved within the Saudi military city. Today, US presence at KKMC is minimal with only a small number of US government personnel still working and living there.