When hostilities erupted between the United States and Libya in March 1986, President Ronald Reagan authorised air strikes on Libyan military installations by the aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea and USAFE F-111s based in the UK. The 11th Strategic Group was reinforced with additional McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender tankers deployed from Spain and the United States, so that RAF Fairford hosted seven KC-10s and two KC-135s, and RAF Mildenhall had 12 KC-10s and eight KC-135s. As several countries refused permission for the F-111s to overfly their territory, the F-111s had to fly a mission from the UK to Libya via the Straits of Gibraltar, only shorter than the British Operation Black Buck missions in the Falklands War.