United States withdrawal from Saudi Arabia

Beginning during Operation Desert Shield in August 1990, while preparing for the Gulf War, the United States sent a large troop contingent to Saudi Arabia. After the war, remnant troops, primarily U.S. Air Force personnel, augmented by a smaller number of coordinating and training personnel from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps remained in Saudi Arabia under the aegis of Joint Task Force Southwest Asia (JTF-SWA), as part of Operation Southern Watch (OSW). The United Kingdom and France also maintained a small contingent of Royal Air Force and French Air Force training personnel.

Operation Southern Watch patrolled by the U.S. Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain enforced the Iraqi no-fly zones over southern Iraq set up after 1991, and the country's oil exports through the shipping lanes of the Persian Gulf.

In 2003, the United States withdrew remaining non-training troops or armament purchase support from Saudi Arabia, with 200 of these support personnel remaining, primarily at Eskan Village, a base which is owned by Saudi Arabian government itself, inn support of the US Military Training Mission (USMTM) in Saudi Arabia and the US Office of Program Management for the Saudi Arabian National Guard (OPM-SANG).

Since Saudi Arabia houses the holiest sites in Islam (Mecca and Medina), a number of Muslims, including Bin Laden and his supporters, were outraged at the permanent presence of non-Muslim U.S., British and French military personnel. The continued presence of U.S. troops after the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia was also one of the stated motivations behind the September 11th terrorist attacks and the Khobar Towers bombing. The date of the 1998 United States embassy bombings was eight years to the day (August 7) that American troops were sent to Saudi Arabia.

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Wikipedia