US Special Operations Forces Deployed To 70% Of The World in 2016

On January 29, US Special Operations Command launched a raid in Yemen targeting 38-year-old Qassim al-Rimi, the leader of Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. This was the first high-profile special forces operation of Donald Trump’s presidency and it resulted in the deaths of at least 14 Al Qaida fighters, over 20 civilians and Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens.
 
Raids like the one in Yemen are nothing new; US special operations troops have been embroiled in constant battle since 9/11 from the back alleys of North Africa to the mountains of Afghanistan. However, the majority of their missions around the globe are related to training local troops to fight, mainly so Americans don’t have to.  American special forces deployed to 138 nations last year — 70 per cent of the world’s countries. That’s according to data from US Special Operations Command published by TomDispatch.
 
While the official data did not acknowledge military action on the ground in Somalia, Syria and Yemen, there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary and those three nations were included in the overview. Some 55.29 per cent of the deployments were in the West Asia, a 35 per cent drop since 2006. During the same timeframe, deployments of elite troops to Africa skyrocketed 1,600 per cent.