Donald Trump has ordered another 1,500 US troops to the Middle East and overruled Congressional objections to sell £6.3 billion in weapons to America’s Arab allies amid ongoing tensions with Iran.

Mr Trump approved plans to send more fighter jets and missile defence batteries to the Persian Gulf in what the Pentagon called a “defensive” deployment intended to protect US troops in the region from Iran.

The US also publicly accused Iran of carrying out a sabotage attack against oil tankers off the coast of the UAE, and said it had evidence Iran planned to load cruise missiles onto small ships and use Shia militias to attack American forces in Iraq.

Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said the new US deployment “threatens international peace”.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump used emergency powers to sweep aside objections in Congress and push through £6.3 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan. </s> National Security Advisor John Bolton (R) announced a new US military deployment to the Gulf, calling it "a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime" (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski)

Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump's order of a US military buildup in the Gulf to counter alleged threats by Iran has many worried about a looming war and others skeptical of Washington's motivations.

- What assets has the US deployed? -

On May 5, Trump's hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton announced the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and a B-52 bomber force to the Gulf.

Days later, the Pentagon added a Patriot missile defense battery and an amphibious assault ship to the deployment

- What is the alleged Iran threat? -

Iran has not made any direct public threats to spark the US deployment. Washington says it acted on intelligence reports of Iranian actions.

Bolton said the aircraft carrier and bomber deployments were "in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings."

On Wednesday, the US was more specific, saying there was an "imminent" threat to US personnel in Iraq from Iraqi militias allegedly controlled by Tehran. The US State Department ordered the partial evacuation of the US embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Arbil in response.

Analysts in Washington suspect that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could have been plotting an attack in retaliation for the US declaring it a terrorist organization in April.

Iran subsequently designated all US troops as "terrorists," effectively making them a potential target.

Have there been any incidents?

One. On Monday, Saudi and United Arab Emirates officials said three oil tankers and a barge anchored at Fujairah near the strategically important entrance to the Gulf were damaged in an alleged "sabotage" operation.

But what caused the relatively minor damage to the vessels and who was behind it remains unknown.

- Is the US preparing for war? -

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it is not. "We fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran," he said Tuesday in Sochi, Russia.

President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that expects the pressure on Iran will bring it to the negotiating table.

"I'm sure that Iran will want to talk soon," he wrote.

At the same time, The New York Times reported last week that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented the White House with a plan for responding to an Iranian attack that involved sending up to 120,000 American troops to the region.

That is not enough to invade Iran but is enough for an attack from outside its borders.

- What do US allies say? -

Washington's European allies have kept their distance, calling for calm and expressing concern over military escalation.

They fear that more pressure on Tehran will compel it to abrogate the international agreement on its nuclear program, the JCPOA, from which Trump withdrew the United States one year ago.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Berlin "still regards this nuclear agreement as the basis for Iran not having any nuclear weapons in the future, and we regard this as existential for our security."

British, Netherlands and German forces in the international coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria downplayed the immediate threat from Iran.

But Germany and the Netherlands said Wednesday that they were suspending training of soldiers in Iraq due to a "generally heightened" state of alert.

And Spain recalled a frigate accompanying the US carrier task force, explaining that the frigate's mission was not to take part in actual hostilities with Iran. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he will send about 1,500 American troops to the Middle East, mostly as a protective measure, amid heightened tensions with Iran.

However, the Republican leader played down the potential for military conflict in the region, saying he believed Iran did not want a confrontation with the United States.

“We want to have protection in the Middle East. We’re going to be sending a relatively small number of troops, mostly protective,” Trump said as he left the White House for a trip to Japan.

The Pentagon said only about 900 of the 1,500 troops will be newly deploying and that 600 are already in the region and will be extended. It said they include Patriot missile battery personnel, manning for surveillance aircraft and engineers.

“Right now, I don’t think Iran wants to fight. And I certainly don’t think they want to fight with us,” Trump said.

“But they cannot have nuclear weapons,” he continued. “They can’t have nuclear weapons. And they understand that.”

The U.S. military deployed a carrier strike group, bombers and Patriot missiles to the Middle East earlier this month in response to what Washington said were troubling indications of possible preparations for an attack by Iran.

Rhetoric between Tehran and Washington has escalated in recent weeks as the United States tightened sanctions with what it said was the goal of pushing Iran to make concessions beyond the terms of its 2015 nuclear deal.

Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers a year ago and now is seeking to block all Iranian oil exports.

Washington believes a series of recent attacks in the region may have been inspired by Iran, including a rocket attack in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and what Saudi Arabia described as armed drone attacks on two oil pumping stations and the sabotage of four vessels including two Saudi oil tankers.

Trump warned on Monday that Iran would be met with “great force” if it attacked U.S. interests in the Middle East. </s> The Pentagon is set to brief the White House on a request for thousands more U.S. troops to be sent to the Middle East, amid rising tensions between Iran and Washington, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans have not been formally announced.

The officials said the request for additional troops was coming from U.S. Central Command and would be presented to the White House on Thursday. But it was not clear whether the White House would approve sending all or just some of the requested defensive forces, as well as additional Patriot missile batteries and more ships.

The Pentagon declined to comment on future plans. “As a matter of long-standing policy, we are not going to discuss or speculate on potential future plans and requests for forces,” said Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have been escalating since U.S. President Donald Trump announced his decision to try to cut Iran’s oil exports to zero and beef up the U.S. military presence in the Gulf in response to what he said were Iranian threats.

But despite the rhetoric, last week Trump told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he did not want to go to war with Iran.

Sending additional U.S. troops to the region would mark a shift in position for Trump, who has repeatedly said in the past he wanted to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the region.

Last December, Trump announced the withdrawal of 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. In February, however, he decided to keep about 400 troops there. </s> Trump says US to send 1,500 more troops to Middle East

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will bolster its military presence in the Middle East with an additional 1,500 troops, President Donald Trump said Friday amid heightened tensions with Iran.

Trump said the troops would have a "mostly protective" role. He spoke to reporters on the White House lawn as he headed out on a trip to Japan.

The administration had notified Congress earlier in the day about the troop plans.

The forces would number "roughly" 1,500 and would deploy in the coming weeks, "with their primary responsibilities and activities being defensive in nature," according to a copy of the notification obtained by The Associated Press.

Their mission would include protecting U.S. forces already in the region and ensuring freedom of navigation, the notification said.

Earlier this week, officials said Pentagon planners had outlined plans that could have sent up to 10,000 military reinforcements to the region. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan later said planners hadn't settled on a figure.

The U.S. began reinforcing its presence in the Persian Gulf region this month in response to what it said was a threat from Iran.

The U.S. has tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East, including at a major Navy base in Bahrain and an Air Force base and operations center in Qatar. There are about 5,200 troops in Iraq and 2,000 in Syria.

Earlier this month, the U.S. sent thousands more into the region around Iran, including an aircraft carrier strike group, four bomber aircraft and fighter jets. </s> File photo: President Donald Trump, flanked by acting Defense Secretary Shanahan and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dunford, during a meeting with military leaders at the White House, April 3, 2019.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he will send about 1,500 American troops to the Middle East, mostly as a protective measure, amid heightened tensions with Iran.

However, the Republican leader played down the potential for military conflict in the region, saying he believed Iran did not want a confrontation with the United States.

"We want to have protection in the Middle East. We're going to be sending a relatively small number of troops, mostly protective," Trump said as he left the White House for a trip to Japan.

The Pentagon said only about 900 of the 1,500 troops will be newly deploying and that 600 are already in the region and will be extended, adding none of the additional forces are headed to Iraq or Syria, but all meant for "defensive purposes" to counter Iran threat.

It also said they include Patriot missile battery personnel, manning for surveillance aircraft and engineers.

Also on Friday Trump, saying there is a national emergency because of tensions with Iran, cleared the sale of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia and other countries, U.S. senators said, despite strong resistance to the plan from both Republicans and Democrats.

The administration has informed congressional committees that it will go ahead with 22 arms deals worth some $8 billion, congressional aides said, sweeping aside a long-standing precedent for congressional review of such sales.

The U.S. military said intelligence suggests a "campaign" by Iran that ties together threats across the Middle East, including the assessment that Iran's Revolutionary Guards are "directly responsible" for attacks on oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates last week.

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"Right now, I don't think Iran wants to fight. And I certainly don't think they want to fight with us," Trump said.

"But they cannot have nuclear weapons," he continued. "They can't have nuclear weapons. And they understand that."

Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of parliament's foreign affairs committee, said on Friday that his country could raise the new U.S. deployment in the at the UN Security Council, RIA news agency reported.

U.S. officials told the Associated Press members of Congress were notified following a White House meeting Thursday to discuss Pentagon proposals to bolster the U.S. force presence in the Middle East.

The forces would help strengthen U.S. defenses in the region, two sources told Reuters earlier on condition of anonymity. They said the forces included engineers.

Earlier this week, officials had said that Pentagon planners had outlined plans that could have sent up to 10,000 military reinforcements to the region. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan later said planners hadn't settled on a figure.

The U.S. began reinforcing its presence in the Persian Gulf region this month in response to what it said was a threat from Iran.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani said on Thursday his country will not surrender to U.S. pressure and will not abandon its goals even if it is bombed, stepping up the war of words between the Islamic Republic and the United States.

Earlier on Thursday, Iran's top military chief said the standoff between Tehran and Washington was a "clash of wills", warning that any enemy "adventurism" would meet a crushing response, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

Tensions have ratcheted up recently in the Mideast as the White House earlier this month sent an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the region over a still-unexplained threat it perceived from Iran. And on Thursday, the Pentagon outlined proposals to the White House to send military reinforcements to the Middle East to beef up defenses against Iran.

After pulling out of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Trump restored U.S. sanctions on Iran last year and tightened them this month, ordering all countries to halt imports of Iranian oil or face sanctions of their own.

"More than one year after the imposition of these severe sanctions, our people have not bowed to pressures despite facing difficulties in their lives," Rohani was quoted by the state news agency IRNA as saying.

>> As tensions rise between U.S. and Iran, each side is waiting for the other to blink | Analysis

Addressing a ceremony in commemoration of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, he added: "We need resistance, so our enemies know that if they bomb our land, and if our children are martyred, wounded or taken as prisoners, we will not give up on our goals for the independence of our country and our pride."

Meanwhile, Iran's foreign minister lashed out at President Trump on Friday during a critically timed visit to Pakistan. The remarks by Mohammad Javad Zarif were the latest in a war of words between him and Trump. The Iranian diplomat on Friday assailed the American president for his tweet earlier this week warning Iran not to threaten the U.S. again or it would face its "official end."

"Iran will see the end of Trump, but he will never see the end of Iran," Zarif was quoted by Iran's semi-official Fars new agency as saying during a visit to Islamabad.

The purpose of Zarif's visit to Pakistan, where he held talks with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi and also Prime Minister Imran Khan, was not made public.

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But there has been speculation that Iran is looking to Islamabad and its close relationship with Riyadh to help de-escalate the situation. Ahead of Zarif's arrival, Pakistan's foreign ministry called on "all sides to show restraint, as any miscalculated move, can transmute into a large-scale conflict."

Zarif has been criticized this week by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who named him and President Rohani as failing to implement the leader's orders over Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Khamenei had claimed the deal had "numerous ambiguities and structural weaknesses" that could damage Iran.

Separately, the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Zarif in Islamabad as warning of anarchy if world powers don't unite to stop what he called U.S. aggression — Iran's official parlance for Washington's pressure on Tehran.

Khamenei's criticism of Zarif signaled a hard-line tilt in how the Islamic Republic will react going forward amid Trump's maximalist pressure campaign.

Iran declared earlier this month that the remaining signatories to the deal — Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia — have two months to develop a plan to shield Iran from American sanctions.

On Monday, Iran announced it had quadrupled its production capacity of low-enriched uranium, making it likely that Tehran will soon exceed the stockpile limitations set by the nuclear accord, which would escalate the situation further.

Several incidents have added to the crisis.

On Thursday, Saudi Arabia said Yemen's Iran-aligned rebels again targeted an airport near its southern border with a bomb-carrying drone.

The Saudi military said it intercepted the drone, while the rebel Houthis said it struck a Patriot missile battery at the airport. The Houthis have claimed three times in recent days to have targeted the airport, which also hosts a military base. It comes after the Houthis last week targeted a Saudi oil pipeline in a coordinated drone attack.

Pakistan was quick to condemn the attacks and promised Saudi Arabia, a staunch ally, its full support. The kingdom this week announced a $3.2 billion deferred oil and gas payment package for energy-strapped Islamabad.

With neighboring Iran, Pakistan walks a fine line and their relationship is sometimes prickly. Islamabad has little leverage with Washington, although relations between the two have improved since Pakistan expressed readiness to help move talks between the Afghan Taliban and Washington forward.

IRNA also reported that Zarif came to Pakistan with a proposal to link Iran's port of Chabahar on the Arabian Sea with Pakistan's Gwadar port, mostly being developed by China as part of the multi-billion-dollar One Road project that will connect the Arabian Sea with China.

The proposal is unexpected because Pakistan's rival India has been Iran's partner in developing Chabahar while Iran's key regional rival, Saudi Arabia, has been in talks to develop an oil refinery facility at Pakistan's Gwadar, though no agreements have been signed.

Meanwhile, Oman's Foreign Ministry said it was working to "ease the tensions" between Iran and the U.S.

The ministry in a series of tweets on Friday morning attributed the comments to Yusuf bin Alawi, the sultanate's minister of state for foreign affairs, and cited an interview in Asharq Al-Wasat, the London-based newspaper owned by a Saudi media group long associated with the Al Saud royal family.

In the interview, bin Alawi warns war "could harm the entire world if it breaks out." He doesn't confirm any current Omani mediation but says both the U.S. and Iran realize the gravity of the situation.

Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said spoke last week by telephone with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Oman, a nation on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has long been an interlocutor of the West with Iran. The U.S. held secret talks in Oman with the Iranians that gave birth to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> 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.

 And it comes as the Trump administration is planning to bypass congressional restrictions to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, a close US ally and Iran’s arch-enemy in the region.

 “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.

 The US caught the IRGC attempting to covertly deploy “modified dhows capable of launching cruise missiles,” he said, referring to small traditional boats.

 “We view this as a campaign,” Gilday told reporters.

 The moves “are all part of a dangerous and escalatory strategy by Iran to threaten global trade and to destabilize the region.”

 “We believe with a high degree of confidence that this stems back to the leadership of Iran at the highest levels, and that all of the attacks… have been attributed to Iran through their proxies or their forces,” Gilday said, citing still-secret US intelligence.

 US officials said the aim of the deployment was both to extend greater protection to the 70,000 US forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and to deliver a message to Iran to refrain from attacks.

 “We think that through a combination of a very measured deployment of assets as well as public messaging, we are again trying to underscore that we are not seeking hostilities with Iran,” he said.

 Gilday said the US moves have had some impact. When Washington first learned of Tehran’s alleged intent to launch attacks, it delivered a stern warning to Tehran “within hours” through an unnamed third party.

 Since then, the threat of the missile-bearing dhows appears to have subsided.

 However, the Trump administration continues to draw criticism that it has not clearly shown the need for an escalation.

 Members of Congress were also angered that Trump was overriding their block on delivery of lethal weapons to the Saudis.

 “More tactics with absolutely no strategy,” tweeted Democratic Senator Chris Murphy.

 “All that is happening now is escalatory move after escalatory move. Trump has ZERO plan for how this ends, and that should scare the hell out of everyone.” But Pentagon officials stressed that the US does not seek war with Iran.

 “We do not see these additional capabilities as encouraging hostilities. We see them as defensive in nature,” said acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Katie Wheelbarger.

 “Our policy remains an economic and diplomatic effort to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to encourage a comprehensive deal that addresses the range of their destabilizing behavior in the region.” Agencies </s> OTTAWA—Canada’s defence minister is calling for calmer heads to prevail as a war of words between the U.S. and Iran threatens to turn into a war of bullets and bombs. Such a conflict could easily spill over into Iraq and the surrounding region, where around 850 Canadian soldiers are deployed as part of the war against Daesh, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

“What we would like to see is de-escalation of this and bring it back from a military conversation and back into the diplomatic sphere,” Harjit Sajjan said in an interview with The Canadian Press from Brussels Thursday, where he was concluding two days of meetings with counterparts from across NATO. The dispute revolves around U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from an agreement his predecessor Barack Obama signed with Iran that limits Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions. Iran has since been accused of attacking several oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and is on the verge of stockpiling more uranium than the agreement allowed. The U.S. has imposed new sanctions and launched a cyberattack on an Iranian militia.

The two sides appeared close to blows last week after Iran shot down a U.S. military drone. Trump said he nearly ordered retaliatory strikes against the country but reversed course after advisers told him those would kill 150 Iranians.

Fears nonetheless persist over the potential for a conflict, which would almost certainly have ramifications across the broader Middle East — including in neighbouring Iraq, where Iran has a sizable influence. Part of that influence comes from Iran’s support for various Shia Muslim militia groups, which helped defeat the Sunni Daesh but owe their allegiance more to Tehran than Baghdad and could be a threat to western forces if war broke out. While Sajjan expressed confidence about the safety of Canadian military personnel in the region, “nonetheless, from the military side, we’ll be closely monitoring things to make sure our people remain safe.” The federal government this week announced Canada will lead a NATO training mission in Iraq until November 2020. That mission involves 250 Canadian Forces members who are working with Iraqi security forces.

Canada has another 600 troops in Iraq and across the region, including special-forces soldiers, medical personnel and helicopter crews in the country, air-transport crews in Kuwait and more trainers in Lebanon and Jordan. Those troops are scheduled to stay in the area until March 2021.

While most of Canada’s effort in Iraq involves working with Iraqi government forces, officials for Iraq’s semi-independent Kurdish region have said they would also welcome Canadian military assistance. Canadian special forces trained and advised the Kurdish peshmerga forces for three years in defending their region against Daesh before working together to free large swathes of territory from Daesh’s grasp. But Canada suspended and then ended its work with the peshmerga after an outbreak of violence between them and Iraqi government forces in October 2017 over control of oil-rich territory in the north of the country. While Canada continues to have a good relationship with the Iraqi Kurds, Sajjan said the Canadian military has shifted its focus to working with Iraqi government forces. “We worked with the (Kurds) very closely when it came to the defence of that region because that’s where it was needed,” he said. “Now the support is actually needed within the Mosul region and the capacity-building that we’re doing with (the Iraqi military). So the work that we’re doing is situation-dependent.” </s> U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, June 11, 2019.

President Donald Trump said Saturday that his administration was moving forward with additional sanctions on Iran and he would discuss tensions between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic at Camp David with his advisors this weekend.

"We are moving forward with additional sanctions on Iran," Trump told reporters as he was departing for Camp David. "They're going on slowly and in some cases pretty rapidly."

Trump's comments come after he called off strikes against the Islamic Republic over concerns that a military response would kill scores of people.

"We want to be proportionate," Trump told reporters Saturday.

Longstanding tensions between the U.S. and Iran have reached a boiling point in recent weeks with the two countries nearly coming to blows.

Iran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone with a surface-to-air missile, one week after two oil tankers were rocked by explosions in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz, the world's busiest sea lane for oil shipments.

Tehran said the surveillance drone had violated its airspace, while the U.S. claimed the unmanned aircraft was operating in international airspace. Washington has also blamed Iran for the attacks on the two oil tankers, a charge Tehran strongly denies.



 "This is not about the straits," Trump said, referring to the Strait of Hormuz. "This is about Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon."



Trump last year pulled out of an international agreement, negotiated by the Obama administration, that limited Iran's nuclear program. His administration has slapped expansive sanctions back on Iran in an attempt to force the Islamic Republic to make greater concessions.
U.S. President Donald Trump orders 1,500 troops and several Patriot missile launchers to the Persian Gulf as tensions rise with Iran.