US deploying 1500 new additional troops to Middle East
WASHINGTON: The United States said it was deploying 1,500 additional troops to the Middle East to counter “credible threats” from Iran in a move denounced by Tehran on Saturday as “a threat to international peace”.
“Increased US presence in our region is very dangerous and a threat to international peace and security and must be confronted,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the official IRNA news agency.
The escalation of the US military presence follows a decision in early May to send an aircraft carrier strike force and B-52 bombers in a show of force against what Washington´s leaders believed was an imminent Iranian plan to attack US assets.
“This is a prudent response to credible threats from Iran,” acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Friday.
President Donald Trump, who approved the deployment, called it “protective.”
“We want to have protection in the Middle East,” Trump told reporters as he prepared to set off on a trip to Japan.
“We´re going to be sending a relatively small number of troops, mostly protective,” Trump added. “It´ll be about 1,500 people.”
The new deployment includes reconnaissance aircraft, fighter jets and engineers. Six hundred of the personnel belong to a Patriot missile defense battalion that had its deployment in the region extended.
Pentagon officials said the move was necessary after multiple threatening actions and several small-in-scope attacks in May by Iranian forces, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and “proxy” forces.
Those include a rocket launched into the Green Zone in Baghdad, explosive devices that damaged four tankers in Fujairah near the entrance to the Gulf, and a Houthi drone attack against a Saudi oil installation.
Iran has denied involvement in any of the attacks.
“Americans make such claims to justify their hostile policies and to create tension in the Persian Gulf,” Zarif said.
The initial threat came at the beginning of May, according to Rear Admiral Michael Gilday, director of the Pentagon´s Joint Staff.
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