{"id":9021,"date":"2025-05-15T05:58:58","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T05:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=9021"},"modified":"2025-05-15T05:59:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T05:59:00","slug":"trump-to-visit-us-troops-in-qatar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=9021","title":{"rendered":"Trump to visit US troops in Qatar"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DOHA, Qatar — <\/span>President Donald Trump<\/a> on Thursday will visit a U.S. installation at the center of American involvement in the Middle East as he uses his four-day visit to Gulf states to reject the \u201cinterventionism\u201d of America\u2019s past in the region.<\/p>\n

Trump plans to address troops at Qatar\u2019s al-Udeid Air Base<\/a>, which was a major staging ground during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the recent U.S. air campaign against Yemen\u2019s Iran-backed Houthis. The president has held up Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar as models for economic development in a region plagued by conflict as he works to entice Iran to come to terms with his administration on a deal to curb its nuclear program.<\/p>\n

Trump has also used his trip to announce plans to recognize the government of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and to ease sanctions on the war-torn country. The U.S. has deployed more than 1,000 troops in Syria for years to suppress a return of the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n

Trump heaped praise on al-Sharaa \u2014 who was tied to al-Qaida and joined insurgents battling U.S. forces in Iraq before entering the Syrian civil war \u2014 after the two met in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. The president called al-Sharaa a \u201cyoung, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a stark contrast from earlier years, when Al-Sharaa was imprisoned by U.S. troops in Iraq. Until December, there was a $10 million U.S. bounty for his arrest.<\/p>\n

Trump, speaking in Saudi Arabia on his first day in the region, told Gulf leaders, \u201cIt\u2019s really incredible what you\u2019ve done. In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the \u2018interventionalists\u2019 were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Qatari base houses some 8,000 U.S. troops, down from about 10,000 at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.<\/p>\n

The gas-rich Gulf country has spent some $8 billion over two decades in developing the base, built on a flat stretch of desert about 20 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Qatar\u2019s capital, Doha. The base was once considered so sensitive that American military officers would say only that it was somewhere \u201cin southwest Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump said he and the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani<\/a>, would also see a demonstration of American air capability, as the U.S. leader looks to boost defense exports to the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re buying a lot of that equipment actually,\u201d Trump said Wednesday when he and Sheikh Tamim signed a series of bilateral and business agreements between the two countries. \u201cAnd I think we\u2019re going to see some of it in action tomorrow at the \u2014 we won\u2019t call it an air fair, but its going to be sort of an air fair. We\u2019re going to be showing a display that\u2019s going to be incredible. They have the latest and the greatest of our planes and just about everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the agreements the two leaders signed on Wednesday was a document clearing the way for Qatar to purchase American-made MQ-9B drones \u2014 the export version of the Reaper.<\/p>\n

Trump told al-Sharaa that he wanted the new government to take control of prisons in Syria holding Islamic State fighters and their family members, who are currently guarded by U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters. If it comes to pass, it would further reduce the need for U.S. troops in the country.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Madhani reported from Dubai. Associated Press writer Gabe Levin in Doha contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DOHA, Qatar — President Donald Trump on Thursday will visit a U.S. installation at the center of American involvement in the Middle East as he uses his four-day visit to Gulf states to reject the \u201cinterventionism\u201d of America\u2019s past in the region. Trump plans to address troops at Qatar\u2019s al-Udeid Air Base, which was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9023,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9021\/revisions\/9023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}