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Trump says U. S. will send up to 1,500 troops to Middle East

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President Trump said the additional troops would have a
The Pentagon said Friday it was sending as many as 1,500 more troops to the Middle East in response to what officials described as a “campaign” of low-level attacks directed by Tehran on U. S. allies in the Middle East.
President Trump said the forces, which include a fighter squadron, manned and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, engineering units and additional Patriot anti-missile batteries, were “relatively small” and would have a “mostly protective” role aimed at deterring Iran.
“Right now, I don’t think Iran wants to fight, and I certainly don’t think they want to fight with us,” Trump told reporters at the White House before leaving on a trip to Japan.
The reinforcements are the latest escalation in a tense series of military moves by Washington and Tehran that have increased tensions in the Persian Gulf and raised the danger of a military clash.
At the Pentagon, officials sharpened claims that Iran had incited the crisis, asserting without providing evidence that recent attacks on four oil tankers and a Saudi pipeline, and a rocket attack in Baghdad, were ordered by Iran’s top leaders and carried out by its forces or proxies.
“We believe with a high degree of confidence that this stems back to the leadership of Iran at the highest levels,” Vice Adm. Michael Gilday, the head of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, said at a news conference announcing the deployments.
He said that U. S. intelligence agencies “attribute” sabotage attacks that damaged four oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates this month to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps using “limpet mines,” a naval munition attached to a target by magnets.

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