US Air Force Engineers repair runway near Mosul in Iraq

completed

Three months ago, four U.S. Air Force engineers with the 1st Expeditionary Civil Engineer Group arrived in northern Iraq to conduct a reconnaissance mission for what would become a historic undertaking. Their mission was to mitigate runway damage caused by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The engineers were informed their task had never been attempted in Iraq. The 1st ECEG took the mission and successfully repaired the severely damaged runway at Qayyarah West Airbase, enabling larger, fixed-wing aircraft to land and supply the Iraqi security forces pushing to retake Mosul.