As ‘Peace’ Breaks Out, Here’s Where US Military Facilities Are In The Middle East

Amid a brief pause in proceedings between Iran and Israel, The Pentagon states that the U.S. currently has around 40,000 active-duty troops and Defense Department civilians stationed in the Middle East, with the largest U.S. military site in the region being Qatar’s Al Udeid air base, where some 10,000 troops are stationed. 

As Statista;s Anna Fleck shows in the chart  below, according to data published by the Congressional Research Service, as of July 10, 2024, personnel were based across Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman.

Qatar’s Al Udeid air base is one of the eight so-called persistent U.S. military bases, which means that it has been continuously used by the U.S. Department of Defense for at least 15 years, with the U.S. military exercising at least some degree of operational control there.

These permanent bases tend to be the DOD’s largest and most well-known.

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Also marked on this infographic are 11 other selected U.S. military sites. According to the Congressional Research Service, these sites do not meet the persistent bases’ criteria but are places where the DOD maintains some sort of territorially linked presence or access.

This data is based on unclassified sources and does not include all facilities in the region, including temporary sites, which the U.S. military may use for exercises or contingency operations without planning on turning them into persistent sites.