Formerly known as Saddam Airbase, the facility is located west of the Tigris River, west of Qayyarah town, south of Mosul and about north of Baghdad. Qayyarah West AB was built in the late 1970s and was one of several Iraqi Air Force airfields of the 1970s which were re-built under project "Super-Base" in response to experiences from the Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973. It became a major airfield during the 1980s war with Iran, when it was the main hub for Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1EQ operations, and when it was the first airbase of Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23MLs. Later during that war, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25s also operated from there.