BOISE, Idaho (AP) — When U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday morning that the federal government had reached an agreement with Qatar to build a facility at an Air Force base in Idaho, social media posts began popping up online from people across the political spectrum expressing outrage at the concept of a foreign military base on American soil.
But the facility being built at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho isn’t a separate base at all — it is a group of buildings that will be built to handle training and maintenance for Qatari troops — and the agreement with Qatar has been in the works for years.
“What we expect is it to be squadron operations and hangars for the F-15QA, because that’s the Qatari version of the jet that they bought through foreign military sales,” Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said. “It is definitely still a U.S. Air Force base.”
In fact, on-site training agreements with allies are common in the U.S. The Republic of Singapore 428th Fighter Squadron Buccaneers have been hosted at the base since 2008. German forces trained at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico for decades. New facilities to train international F-35 fighter pilots were completed at Ebbing Air Force Base in Arkansas last year.
Here are some things to know about international training agreements and the Mountain Home Air Force base.