About 300 members of the South Carolina Air National Guard's 169th Fighter Wing arrived in Saudi Arabia for deployment, it announced on Wednesday.

The troop movement includes an undefined number of F-16CJ fighter planes, a statement from the wing said, noting that it is the SCANG's largest deployment since its support of troops in Kuwait in 2018.

The unit, known as the "Swamp Foxes," will support U.S. Central Command in Saudi Arabia by "preserving operational depth, staging joint forces and projecting overwhelming combat power in the region," the statement said.

The unit's length of deployment was not announced, but "The Swamp Foxes are fully prepared to support the CENTCOM mission and execute the National Security Strategy," Lt. Col. Shaun Bowes, 157th Fighter Squadron commander, said in Wednesday's statement.

The number of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia varies, numbered in the thousands, and is variable but growing.

Several thousand are stationed at Prince Sultan Air Base, near the capital city of Riyadh, but in the past year, ports and air bases in the remote western part of the country have been utilized to reduce exposure to possible ballistic missile attacks by Iran.

The United States currently has thousands of additional American troops in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, as well as about 2,500 troops in Iraq, about 900 in Syria and an additional 2,500 in Afghanistan, the U.S. Defense Department has said.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in February that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Kirby is "comfortable" with the current U.S. presence in the Middle East.

The White House announced on Tuesday that U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be fully withdrawn by Nov. 11, 2021, and has signaled that it intends to take a tougher line in dealing with Saudi Arabia than the previous administration.

However, a State Department statement, restating U.S. support for Saudi Arabia, came after a drone attack last week in downtown Riyadh.

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