The idea of an airfield in southern Turkey is older than NATO. According to the US Air Force’s history of the base, Allied leaders agreed in December 1943 to locate a new air base south of Ankara. After Congress approved aid to Turkey in May 1947, construction began in the spring of 1951 about 250 miles south-east of Ankara, near Adana. The field was first planned as an emergency staging and recovery base for American medium and heavy bombers. Turkey joined NATO in February 1952.

The Turkish General Staff and the US Air Force signed a joint-use agreement in December 1954, and on 21 February 1955 the airfield was officially named Adana Air Base, with the US 7216th Air Base Squadron as host unit. It was renamed İncirlik Air Base on 28 February 1958. The base lies about 10–12 km from Adana city: Hürriyet Daily News gives 10 km, other descriptions 12 km.

Its first secret began with weather balloons. The US Air Force history records Project 119L, a meteorological balloon-launching activity, at Adana in 1955, followed by U-2 reconnaissance flights. Until May 1960 İncirlik was the main U-2 operating location. Francis Gary Powers’ U-2, shot down over Sverdlovsk on 1 May 1960, came from the CIA’s U-2 detachment known as 10-10, although that particular flight took off from Peshawar in Pakistan (Wikipedia, used as a finding aid).

In July 1958, after the coup in Baghdad, İncirlik was the staging base for the American airborne force sent to Lebanon. Troops of Army Task Force 201 staged through the base as Force Alpha, and by the end of the month American forces had ringed Beirut. Through the 1960s the base also held NATO alert commitments and hosted rotational training squadrons of the US 16th Air Force and US Air Forces in Europe.

On 1 April 1966 US Air Forces in Europe replaced the 7216th with the 39th Tactical Group. Through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s American F-4s, F-15s, F-16s, F-111s and A-10s rotated through for training, using the Turkish air-to-ground range at Konya from 1970. The one break came after Cyprus. When Congress imposed an arms embargo following the Turkish intervention of 1974, Ankara announced in 1975 that US bases would close; İncirlik and İzmir stayed open only for NATO tasks until the embargo was lifted in September 1978 (Wikipedia). The Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement of 29 March 1980, still cited by Ankara, reset the arrangement.

The Gulf War of 1991 turned İncirlik into a combat base. The 7440th Composite Wing, air component of Joint Task Force Proven Force, controlled 140 aircraft and, in the US Air Force’s words, flew about 5,000 sorties from Turkey against targets in northern Iraq, forcing Baghdad to split its air defences. Relief airdrops for Kurdish refugees under Operation Provide Comfort began on 7 April 1991, delivering as many as 600 pallets a day.

Provide Comfort ran until 31 December 1996 and Operation Northern Watch from 1 January 1997 until its last patrol returned on 17 March 2003, two days before the invasion of Iraq. Combined Task Force Northern Watch, commanded jointly by an American and a Turkish brigadier general, fielded about 45 US, British and Turkish aircraft and more than 1,400 personnel. After 2001 the base became a main hub for Afghanistan and Iraq; the US Air Force says about 68 percent of air logistics for both wars passed through it.

İncirlik is a Turkish Air Force base. The Ministry of National Defence restated in March 2026 that all facilities belong to the Turkish Republic and that the base commander is a Turkish brigadier general. The Turkish command, long the 10th Tanker Base Command, was renamed the 10th Main Jet Base Command on 18 April 2024, “in line with the needs of our Air Forces”, the ministry said. It sits under Combat Air Force Command.

The Turkish flying units are a tanker squadron, an F-16 squadron and drones, according to the ministry’s 2026 briefing as reported by Hürriyet Daily News. The tanker unit is 101 Squadron with seven KC-135Rs received from 1994 (Wikipedia). The F-16 squadron is given by F-16.net as 152 Squadron, moved from Merzifon after the July 2016 coup attempt and re-equipped with Block 40 jets; that number is not confirmed by an official Turkish source, and a 2020 Turkish list still placed 152 Squadron at Merzifon.

The American units are tenants. The US Air Force’s 39th Air Base Wing, redesignated as a wing on 12 March 2004, runs support for US forces across Turkey: security, medical, supply, communications and airfield services. It has no resident flying squadron; aircraft deploy on rotation, as with the 447th Air Expeditionary Group during the war against the Islamic State. Its 39th Operations Support Squadron, a mix of American and Turkish staff, describes the airfield as US Air Forces in Europe’s busiest aerodrome.

Other allies come and go. Germany based six Tornados, a tanker and about 250 troops at İncirlik for the anti-IS campaign until Turkey refused visits by German members of parliament; the contingent moved to Jordan in 2017. In 2026 the ministry listed Spanish, Polish and Qatari personnel on the base, and a Spanish Patriot battery was already deployed there when NATO added a second one in March 2026.

The most sensitive thing reportedly kept at İncirlik is never officially mentioned. Neither the United States nor Turkey confirms that nuclear weapons are stored there, and NATO speaks only of US weapons “deployed in allied countries in Europe”. What exists in public comes from independent analysts, leaks and politicians’ remarks, and the estimates differ: Wikipedia, citing The New Yorker, gives “up to” 50 bombs, while the Federation of American Scientists gives 40–50, based on about two bombs per vault.

The best-known estimate is Hans Kristensen’s at the Federation of American Scientists. In October 2019 he estimated roughly 50 B61 bombs at İncirlik, down from about 90 in 2000. By his account, 40 of those 90 had been earmarked for Turkish F-16s and were moved to İncirlik when the US withdrew its munitions support squadrons from Turkish bases in 1996, then shipped back to the United States around 2005. Satellite imagery showed 21 shelters with vaults inside a new security perimeter built in 2015, with room for up to 84 bombs.

The subject resurfaces in every crisis. After the 2016 coup attempt, when the base lost external power and its Turkish commander was arrested, analysts questioned the wisdom of keeping weapons there. In October 2019, as Turkey moved into north-eastern Syria, President Trump was asked about “as many as 50 nuclear weapons” at the base and replied, “We’re confident”. Joe Biden told The New York Times in December 2019 that his comfort level had “diminished a great deal”.

When the coup attempt began on the evening of 15 July 2016, more than 2,000 US personnel were at İncirlik and American aircraft were airborne over Iraq and Syria. Military.com, drawing on interviews, reported that a Turkish aircraft had just taken off from the base to refuel the F-16s that would bomb the Turkish parliament. Colonel David Trucksa, commander of the US 447th Air Expeditionary Group, said the power went out soon after.

The Turkish authorities cut the base’s external power and closed the airspace over it, grounding US operations against the Islamic State until the Sunday. The Pentagon said US facilities were running on internal power; commercial power stayed off for several days. Turkish police made arrests on the base, including its commander, General Bekir Ercan Van, who according to Military.com asked for asylum in the United States and was refused.

The court later found that Van had put the base at the plotters’ disposal. Anadolu Agency reported in December 2020 that tanker aircraft that took off on his orders refuelled the coup jets 10 times while they bombed the presidential complex, the parliament and the special police headquarters; the Turkish broadcaster TRT World reported 20 refuellings. The court gave Van 79 aggravated life sentences and 3,901 years and six months in prison.

İncirlik has become the lever Ankara reaches for when relations with Washington sour. On 15 December 2019, after the US Senate recognised the 1915 Armenian killings as genocide and amid sanctions threats over the S-400 purchase, President Erdoğan said “we may close İncirlik” and the Kürecik radar station if necessary. In April 2021, after Washington recognised the 1915 events as genocide, the ministry reminded critics that the Turkish flag over the base “is hoisted for 24 hours and never lowered.”

For the Americans on the base, security meant confinement. Hürriyet Daily News reported that US personnel were barred from leaving the base from 2011, because of the Islamic State threat, until 21 January 2023. Within weeks the base became a relief hub after the earthquakes of 6 February 2023; Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged further aid there on 20 February. After 7 October 2023 the off-base ban returned amid anti-Israel and anti-American protests, to the dismay of shopkeepers in İncirlik town.

The war between the United States, Israel and Iran from 28 February 2026 brought the base under direct threat for the first time. Two journalists were detained that day for filming near the base. NATO air defences intercepted ballistic missiles fired from Iran towards Turkey on 4, 9, 13 and 30 March; sirens sounded at İncirlik at about 03:25 on 13 March. Iran denied launching them. Turkish officials did not name the targets; press reports said the missiles were aimed at İncirlik and Kürecik. NATO added a second Patriot battery at the base in March 2026.