WASHINGTON — The United States is sending nearly 3,000 more Army troops to the Mideast in the volatile aftermath of the killing of an Iranian general in a strike ordered by President Donald Trump.
Defense officials 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.
The reinforcements took shape as Trump gave his first comments on the strike. He said he ordered the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani because he was “plotting to kill” many Americans.
The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, Iraqi officials said.
The news came hours after the strike, but U.S. officials said the deployment was not in response to the strike, according to NBC News.
The move marked a major escalation in the standoff between Washington and Iran. Iran's supreme leader warned that a "harsh retaliation is waiting" for the U.S. after the airstrike, calling Soleimani the "international face of resistance." Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said on Twitter "the great nation of Iran will take revenge for this heinous crime."
Trump later said he believed Soleimani should have been "taken out many years ago" on Twitter.
"He was directly and indirectly responsible for the death of millions of people, including the recent large number of protesters killed in Iran itself," he wrote.
The State Department in the meantime urged U.S. citizens to depart Iraq "immediately."