US deploys thousands more troops to Middle East

On Jan 4, 2020 9:52 AM

A handout picture received from the US embassy in Iraq on December 31, 2019, shows American soldiers taking position around the embassy in the capital Baghdad, after supporters and members of the Hashed al-Shaabi military network breached the outer wall of the diplomatic mission during a rally to vent anger over weekend air strikes that killed pro-Iran fighters in western Iraq. - The US State Department said that embassy personnel are safe and there are no plans to evacuate, after Iraqi supporters of pro-Iran factions attacked the compound. It is the first time in years that protesters have been able to reach the building, sheltered behind a series of checkpoints in the high-security Green Zone. (Photo by - / US EMBASSY IN IRAQ / AFP)

SANAA, Jan. 4 (YPA) – The United States is deploying up to 3,500 additional troops in the Middle East in a show of force after the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, a US official in Defence Department said Friday.

Reinforcements will come from the 82nd Airborne Division’s Global Response Force, which has already provided several hundred additional troops to the region earlier this week as tension swells over the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad.

The move following the association of Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, which Washington said was behind attacks on US facilities in Iraq in recent months.

E.M