United States is sending nearly
3,000 more troops to the Mideast as reinforcements in the aftermath of the
killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a strike ordered by President
Donald Trump.
There has been no official
confirmation of the plan, which runs contrary to Trump’s policy of reducing US
military presence in the region.
US troops going on a deployment
Defense officials who spoke
Friday said the troops are from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina. They are in addition to about 700 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne who
deployed to Kuwait earlier this week after the storming of the U.S. Embassy
compound in Baghdad by Iran-backed militiamen and their supporters.
According to AP, dispatching of
extra troops reflects US concern about potential Iranian retaliatory action for
the killing of Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force.
Prior to this week’s troop
deployments, the administration had sent 14,000 additional troops to the
Mideast since May, when it first publicly claimed Iran was planning attacks on
U.S. interests.
The reinforcements took shape as
Trump gave his first comments on the strike, declaring that he ordered the
killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani because he had killed and wounded many
Americans over the years and was plotting to kill many more. “He should have
been taken out many years ago,” he added.
The strike marked a major
escalation in the conflict between Washington and Iran, as Iran vowed “harsh
retaliation” for the killing of the senior military leader. The two nations
have faced repeated crises since Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and
imposed crippling sanctions.
The United States urged its
citizens to leave Iraq “immediately” as fears mounted that the strike and any
retaliation by Iran could ignite a conflict that engulfs the region.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
defended the strike as “wholly lawful,” saying that Soleimani posed an
“imminent” threat against the U.S. and its interests in the region.
“There was an imminent attack,”
Pompeo told Fox News. “The orchestrator, the primary motivator for the attack,
was Qassem Soleimani.”
