Joint Base Balad
Introduction
Aka:
Balad Air Base
Logistics Support Area Anaconda
Life Support Area Anaconda
LSA Anaconda
Contingency Operating Base Anaconda
COB Anaconda
Foward Operating Base Anaconda
FOB Anaconda
Camp Anaconda
Forward Support Area Anaconda
FSA Anaconda
Balad Air Base (also Airbase)
Balad AB
Camp Balad
Balad Southeast
Al-Bakr Air Base (name used under Sadam Hussein)
Mortaritaville (nickname)
Government sources
Analysis
Balad Airbase, GlobalSecurity.org
As of Febuary 2006, Balad AB was home to about 25,000 U.S. troops.
The base is so large it has its own ‘neighborhoods’. These include: ‘KBR-land’ (a Halliburton subsidiary company); ‘CJSOTF’ which is home to a special operations unit,’ the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force and is surrounded by especially high walls that is, according to The Washington Post, so secretive that even the base Army public affairs chief has never been inside. There is a Subway sandwich shop, a Pizza Hut, a Popeye’s, a 24-hour Burger King, two post exchanges which sell an impressive array of goods, four mess halls, a minature golf course and a hospital. The base has a strictly enforced on-base speed limit of 10 MPH.