The US is deploying roughly 3,000 additional troops to the Middle East after it killed a top Iranian general, the Department of Defense announced Friday.
PENTAGON SPOKESMAN CONFIRMED
The new deployment will include soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division’s Immediate Response Force, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed on condition of anonymity. They will be sent to Kuwait.
Qassem Soleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force who was the chief architect of Iran’s Middle East operations, was killed early Friday morning in a US airstrike outside of Baghdad’s airport. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a senior commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) was also killed in the airstrike.
Soleimani’s slaying marks a dramatic escalation in tensions between the US and Iran, which have often been at a fever pitch since President Donald Trump chose in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw the US from the nuclear pact world powers struck with Tehran.