After undergoing major renovations to be able to reach international standards and category 1 status, it reopened as a civilian airport on 2 December 2007.

On December 27, 2020, the Iraqi Government allowed the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority to negotiate and agree to a memorandum of understanding for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Mosul International Airport with Aeroports de Paris Ingenierie (ADPI) and SEA Milan Airports.

[3] The airfield was used by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) at the end of the Mesopotamian Campaign of World War I and from 1920 RAF aircraft squadrons (and from 1922 also Royal Air Force armoured car companies) were based there while Iraq was under the League of Nations British Mandate.

On 21 December 2004, fourteen US soldiers, four American employees of Halliburton, and four Iraqi soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on a dining hall at the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Marez, west of the main US military airfield at Mosul.

The Pentagon reported that 72 other personnel were injured in the attack carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest and the uniform of the Iraqi security services.

During 2006–2007, the U.S. government spent over 15 million US dollars restoring the airfield lighting, generators, and built a new air traffic control tower on the East side of the Field.

Many of the extra CHU's and other types of portable structures were sent to Baghdad to accommodate the surge that was occurring in that area.

[1] Satellite images taken on 31 October 2016 shows that the airport runways have been damaged, with wide trenches carved into them and rubble placed along their lengths, according to Stratfor.