Canada established Camp Mirage in the autumn of 2001, when it sent warships to the region at Washington’s request after the 11 September attacks, The Globe and Mail reported in 2005. The government never said where it was, out of respect for the host nation, but the newspaper put it on Minhad air base in the desert south of Dubai and quoted officials conceding they had not done a very good job of keeping the secret. More than 200 Canadians were based there in 2005, and Canadian aircraft had flown 3,000 sorties from it.

The camp’s job was to bridge the gap between Canada and Kandahar. Wikipedia describes cargo arriving on strategic airlifters and being moved onto CC-130 Hercules for the last leg into Afghanistan; CTV News reported that as many as 32,500 Canadian personnel passed through it every year. It also served as a decompression stop for troops coming home.

In October 2010 CTV News reported, citing a source, that Camp Mirage would close within a month after talks on airline landing rights failed. Under a 1999 agreement Emirates and Etihad could fly six times a week to Canada; the UAE wanted daily flights to major Canadian cities including Calgary and Vancouver, pointing to the 27,000 Canadians living in the UAE and to the UAE’s place as Canada’s biggest trading partner in the Middle East and North Africa.

On 11 October 2010, according to Wikipedia, the aircraft carrying Defence Minister Peter MacKay home from Afghanistan was refused permission to land at the base. The UAE’s account, given to Gulf News by an official, was that the memorandum covering Canada’s use of the base had expired in June, had been extended by three months as a gesture of goodwill without reciprocity, and that the minister’s aircraft had been informed well in advance and had arranged another landing place. The official called the Canadian reports a deliberate leak with misinformation.

Operations were officially brought to a close at a ceremony on 3 November 2010, and Canada moved its logistics and decompression hub to Cyprus, CTV News reported on 5 November. The episode is a rare public example of a Gulf state using basing access as leverage in a commercial dispute, and each government described it differently.

Australia’s presence began in 2003 with RAAF AP-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, ABC News reported in 2014. In 2008, after Australian combat troops left Iraq, the two countries signed a status of forces agreement and the base became the Australian Defence Force’s main transport and logistics hub in the region, with about 500 personnel permanently based; the Nautilus Institute records the command of the Middle East Area of Operations moving from Baghdad to Al Minhad in late 2008.

ABC described the Australian facilities as a collection of prefab huts and hangars on the edge of a massive runway, on a base that belongs to the UAE air force and is not technically Australian. In February 2014 the facilities were renamed Camp Baird, after a fallen Australian soldier, and about 800 Australians were then based there, according to the Nautilus Institute. The Department of Defence describes the mission as Operation Accordion, run by Headquarters Joint Task Force 633, without naming the base.

In September 2014 Al Minhad became the staging point for Australia’s air contribution against the Islamic State: F/A-18F Super Hornets, an E-7A Wedgetail and a KC-30A tanker, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott describing the commitment as essentially a humanitarian operation, ABC reported.

The UK Government announced on 23 January 2013 that the RAF had stood up No. 906 Expeditionary Air Wing in the UAE, to support the air bridge between Britain and Afghanistan and RAF aircraft exercising in the region; Typhoons of 6 Squadron had already exercised there. The release did not name the base; Wikipedia places the wing at Al Minhad and says it handled Voyager, C-17 and C-130J aircraft during the August 2021 evacuation of Kabul.

On 6 March 2024 the Princess Royal opened Donnelly Lines, permanent headquarters, accommodation and welfare buildings for UK personnel at the base, the RAF reported. They are named after Sergeant William ‘Billy’ Donnelly, an RAF navigator who died on 14 February 1943 when his Wellington crashed in Fujairah, about 75 miles east of the base. The ceremony included a flypast by the UAE’s Al Fursan display team alongside an RAF A400M.