In alphabetical order they are:
- Afghanistan: 14,000
- Bahrain: 7,000
- Iraq: 6,000
- Jordan: 3,000
- Kuwait: 13,000
- Oman: 600
- Qatar: 13,000
- Saudi Arabia: 3,000
- Syria: 800
- Turkey: 2,500
- UAE: 5,000
The Oberösterreichische Nachrichten graphic is very similar to the one published by the Washington Post ( Miriam Berger, Where U.S. troops are in the Middle East and Afghanistan, visualized 01/05/2020) and Newsweek (Tom O'Conner, Where Are U.S: Troops Near Iran? 01/06/2020). Those two show the number of troops in Oman as precisely 606. (?) The Post version of the graphic sources the numbers to the Federation of American Scientists and the International Crisis Group. The Post article also describes the estimates by country in more detail.
Kullman writes:
Im Konflikt in der Region geht es aber vor allem um zwei Punkte: einerseits den Streit mit Saudi-Arabien um die Vorherrschaft, andererseits um die Angst des schiitischen Iran, der sich von den mehrheitlich sunnitischen Nachbarländern eingekesselt fühlt. Das Mullah-Regime treibt dagegen eine schiitische Achse vom Iran über den Irak, Syrien und den Libanon bis ans Mittelmeer voran.
[In the conflict in the region, however, there are two main issues at stake: on the one hand, the dispute with Saudi Arabia over dominance, and on the other hand, the fear of Shiite Iran, which feels encircled by the majority Sunni neighboring countries. The mullah regime, on the other hand, is pushing a Shiite axis from Iran to Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to the Mediterranean.] (my translation)But the article doesn't say much about the presence of American troops as such in the region. It does give some background on the decades-long tensions and conflicts between the USA and Iran.
I wonder how many Members of Congress could describe the mission of the troops in each of those countries.
Newsweek provides this summary background on the state of the Afghanistan front in the Forever War:
The U.S. intervened militarily in Afghanistan weeks after the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and set the stage for the "War on Terror" that has since dominated the Pentagon's presence in the nearby Middle East. Although the U.S. managed to overthrow the Taliban's government, the group has remained a powerful insurgent force that even after 18 years of war has managed to steadily retake regions.
The Trump administration has engaged in successive rounds of diplomacy with the militant group's diplomats in the Qatari capital of Doha in hopes of striking a peace agreement that would foster direct Taliban-Afghan government negotiations. Newsweek reported in August that the U.S. considered reducing its roughly 14,000 troops in Afghanistan by more than half, leaving roughly 6,000 behind—although talks fell apart the following month amid continued violence.
