Alaskan F-22 Fighters Forward Deployed to Support Israel Against Iran: Qatari Airbase Plays Host

The U.S. Air Force has forward deployed 12 F-22 Raptor fifth generation fighters to an unconfirmed location in the Middle East. The aircraft are permanently stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, and transferred through Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath in the United Kingdom before being forward deployed under the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle Eastern theatre. The deployment comes as part of a broader surge in the American military presence in the region, which is intended to maximise Washington’s ability to respond to expected military retaliation by Iran against America’s close security partner Israel. Israel on July 31 launched an unprecedented attack on the Iranian capital Tehran. Among the casualties from the Israeli strike was Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh. 

Iran previously responded to an Israeli attack on its territory in April, after an Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus killed two senior generals and 11 others, many of them diplomats. When Iran subsequently retaliated with drone and missile strikes on Israeli targets on April 13, an increased American military presence in the region was key to blunting the impact of the attacks. The expansion of the American military presence thus follows the pattern seen in early-mid April. 

The F-22 is one of two fifth generation fighter classes fielded by the United States and its allies, and was intended to serve as a heavier more capable counterpart to the cheaper F-35. Issues with the F-22 program, however, resulted in a 75 percent cut to planned production, with the aircraft’s avionics increasingly considered obsolete, particularly compared to new. F-35 variants and to the rival Chinese J-20 fifth generation fighter. The F-22 was initially intended to partly bridge the range gap between top American and Russian fighters favouring the latter, although the program failed to meet these requirements resulting in a fighter with the shortest ranged of any in the world of its size. This is a serious limiting factor in the Middle East in particular, where aircraft are required to cover vast distances for offensive operations, and would see their stealth capabilities compromised by carriage of external fuel tanks or by refuelling operations in the air. 

Although F-22s were previously stationed at Al Dhafra Airbase in Abu Dhabi, where they were employed for incursions into Syrian airspace to confront Russian and Syrian forces, as well as for strikes on targets in Afghanistan, there have been multiple indications that basing in the country is no longer favoured. The U.S. Air Force in May notably transferred multiple fighter units from bases in the United Arab Emirates to its facilities in Qatar, following a growing rift in relations between Washington and Abu Dhabi as the UAE government made clear it would not allow American air strikes on neighbouring countries from its soil unless it was informed beforehand. The UAE has resisted American pressure to ban the use of telecommunications equipment from the Chinese firm Huawei, and in 2021 also became the first Gulf state ever to place orders for Chinese fighter planes, while Western sources have also alleged that the country has begun to host Chinese military facilities on its soil. These among other factors have led Washington to seek to reduce reliance on military facilities in the country. Unlike Abu Dhabi, Doha has aligned itself very closely with Western Bloc interests, and is accordingly designated a Major Non-NATO Ally of the United States. Alongside F-22s, Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar is reported to have also begun hosting a squadron of U.S. Navy 5th Fleet F-18E/F Super Hornet fighters and an E-2 airborne early warning and control system on August 7. Al Udeid notably first hosted F-22s in June 2019.