Where U.S. Troops Are Based In The Middle East

Mon, 01/06/2020

After the death of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani by a U.S. missile on Friday in Baghdad, the Iraqi government has voted in a non-binding resolution Sunday to expel U.S. troops from the country. Prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi could now take back the invitation that allows 6,000 troops to currently stay in Iraq.

But, as Statista's Niall McCarthy notes, while the U.S. presence in Iraq is sizable, other Middle Eastern countries host many more U.S. troops. The largest U.S. base in the Middle East is in Qatar. The country hosts around 13,000 U.S. troops, according to numbers compiled by the Washington Post. Located southwest of Doha, Al Udeid Air Base has proven crucial in the fight against ISIS. Qatar invested $1 billion in constructing the base and it's also home to the the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center, responsible for coordinating U.S. and allied air power across the Middle East, particularly in airspace over Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

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