(Bloomberg) -- A deadly drone attack on US troops in Jordan is reigniting a debate about America’s military presence across the Middle East as the Israel-Hamas war prompts attacks by Iran-backed militias across the region. 

The US has about 47,000 troops stationed in the Middle East across a range of bases and regional commands, according to the US government and estimates by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Although most of those are stationed at big bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, many thousands more are scattered around smaller outposts.

Those include personnel in Iraq and Jordan, which hosts a small base known as Tower 22 where the three Americans were killed over the weekend. The Pentagon said there have been 165 attacks on US positions in the region since mid-October: 66 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and the one in Jordan on Sunday. 

While some of the sites of US power projection are obvious, many of the operations are smaller, and in some cases aren’t even officially acknowledged.

“That was by design because of the nature of this fight where we still are fighting elements” of Islamic State, said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute who previously worked at the National Security Council. “It’s not the sort of thing that diplomats tend to emphasize.”

The White House is now weighing potential responses after the US soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded. It marked the first time Americans have been killed in the violence ricocheting around the region since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel sparked a war in Gaza that has raised tensions across the region.

The US military says it maintain tens of thousands of troops across the region to engage in counter-terrorism operations against Islamic State, training local forces in places such as Iraq and more broadly projecting US power and deterring Iran. 

On Monday, the White House made it clear that the US wasn’t about to pull troops out of the region. 

Read more: US Seeks Just-Tough-Enough Response to Deadly Mideast Attack 

“These troops were conducting a vital mission in the region aimed at helping us work with partners to counter ISIS,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, told reporters, referring to a name used for Islamic State. “And even as the Defense Department gathers more information about the attack, that mission must and will continue.”

The challenge is that while American taxpayers may not know about the location of US troops in the Middle East or around the world, their presence is often well-known by potentially hostile groups nearby.

“The American public doesn’t know about them, but Iran and Iranian militias know about them,” says Thomas Spoehr, a retired US general who is now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There are other targets to be gone after if Iran so chooses.”

--With assistance from Courtney McBride.

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