Over the past eight months, the United States has poured more than 20,000 additional troops into the Middle East to counter the escalating threat from Iran that peaked with the recent missile attack on American forces in Iraq.
Several US service members were injured during last week's Iranian missile attack on Al-Asad airbase in Iraq despite the Pentagon initially saying that no casualties had taken place.
The United States military resumed joint operations with Iraq on Wednesday, military officials said, ending a 10-day pause that began after an American airstrike killed a top Iranian military commander in Baghdad.
President Trump had from his earliest days in office raised the possibility of killing Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the powerful Iranian military commander who died this month in a U.S. military drone strike.
Iran’s stunning admission that its forces errantly downed a Ukrainian jetliner — reversing three days of denial — did little to quell growing fury inside the country and beyond on Saturday as the deadly tragedy turned into a volatile political crisis for Tehran’s leaders and overshadowed their struggle with the United States.
The Trump administration on Friday announced a new wave of sanctions on Iran following this week's missile strikes by the Islamic Republic on U.S. bases in Iraq.
In the hours after President Trump declared that the U.S. and Iran were backing away from open conflict, militants in Baghdad fired two rockets that set off warning sirens at the U.S. Embassy.
President Trump backed away from further military action against Iran and called for renewed diplomacy on Wednesday as the bristling confrontation of the past six days eased in the aftermath of an Iranian missile strike that seemed intended to save face rather than inflict casualties.
