In the past year, the United States’ military presence has changed in and around the Middle East, most recently with the deployment of 3,500 troops from North Carolina’s Fort Bragg in response to an early January drone strike in Iraq that killed Iran’s top military leader.
That adds to the thousands of troops already in the region. But exactly how many Americans are currently deployed to the region?
In short, the data to fully answer this question isn’t available, though based on available government data and documents, there may be over 80,000 military personnel in the region.
