Nouasseur Air Base Nouasseur Air Base near Casablanca , French Morocco is a former United States Air Force Strategic Air Command ( SAC ) base . It was designed for B - 36 and B - 47 bombers . Today , Nouasseur AB is known as Mohammed V International Airport . Origins . USAF air base siting in French Morocco developed out of the Allied presence there at the close of World War II . In the early 1950s , SAC developed a reflex operation strategy between its southern bases and Morocco , with B - 36 and B - 47 wings rotating to North Africa for extended temporary duty as a staging area for bombers pointed at the Soviet Union . Nouasseur Air Base was constructed by Atlas Constructors ( A Joint Venture led by Morrison - Knudsen ( M - K ) which also included the Nello L . Teer Company , Bates & Rogers Construction Corp . , Blythe Bros . Company , and Ralph R . Mills Co . , Inc . ) , assisted by the 496th Air Installation Squadron ( AIS ) of the US Air Force from August 1951 to June 1952 . SAC ' s 5th Air Division was activated on 14 January 1951 , at Offutt AFB , NE then moved without personnel and equipment , to Rabat / Sale in May 1951 , absorbing the resources and responsibilities of the USAF Mission to Morocco . The division was assigned the task of manning , training and equipping assigned units and preparing installations in French Morocco for the support of deployed SAC units . SAC use . In December 1951 , the 118th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron was transferred to Nouasseur . The majority of the 118th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron personnel were located at Nouasseur Air Base , but they also had detachments in the field in the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert . Their mission was to calibrate , set up , and maintain early warning and tactical control radar and radio sites in support of the Strategic Air Command . Nouasseur Air Base was critically important for SAC during its forward deployment exercises . Nouasseur was quite capable of hosting any of SAC ' s aircraft , with an asphalt - concrete runway of 12 , 000 feet . The airfield became operational in June 1952 . The aircraft flown by SAC to Morocco from the United States remained on alert status for a specified number of days , then returned to their CONUS bases . The 5th Air Division never had any assigned combat units , such as wings , only individual aircraft that were assigned to units back in the United States . The 5th Air Division ' s did oversee the 3922d Air Base ( Later : Combat Support ) Group as the base operating unit . The division commander also acted as a representative to the Moroccan Liaison Office for the Commander , 16th Air Force . During the middle and late - 1950s , SAC adopted a dispersal program — spreading out its potential as a Soviet target by placing its aircraft , weapons , and personnel on many more bases , with each bombardment wing having two additional installations to which it could disperse . Nouasseur was one of a ring of overseas SAC air bases located from Greenland to North Africa . In addition , SAC devised a deployment program to use its shorter - range B - 47 s , which Nouasseur hosted , rotating squadrons on a 90 - day basis and kept the aircraft on 15 - minute alert for that time period . The overseas bases moved the B - 47s into effective range of their targets without aerial refueling . USAFE F - 86 Sabres began flying gunnery training missions during the spring of 1954 from Nouasseur . The 5th Air Division was inactivated on 15 January 1958 . It was replaced by the 4310th Air Division , which remained the host unit until the base closed in 1963 . With the destabilization of the French government in Morocco , and Moroccan independence in 1956 , the government of Mohammed V wanted the US Air Force to pull out of the SAC bases in Morocco , insisting on such action after American intervention in Lebanon in 1958 . The United States agreed to leave as of December 1959 , and was fully out of Nouasseur Air Base , closing the facility on 15 August 1963 .