The U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division Deployment Ready Brigade has been issued orders to prepare to deploy to Kuwait after hundreds of Iranian-backed militia tried to storm the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, defense officials said Tuesday.
Approximately 500 paratroopers are already enroute to Kuwait, the officials told Fox News, and the alert brigade of approximately 4,000 paratroopers, also known as the DRB, has been told to be ready for a possible deployment.
A statement from the Pentagon is expected at some point Tuesday night about the deployment, reports Fox, while some paratroopers have already left their base in Fort Bragg, N.C.
CNN, meanwhile, reported it is not likely the additional soldiers from the 82nd Airborne will be sent into Iraq, but instead to a nearby country or countries so they can respond quickly if the situation deteriorates further.
CNN's sources confirmed the initial number of troops, drawn mostly from the 82nd Airborne Division, will be less than 1,000 soldiers, and a larger force involving several thousand more has been placed on standby and could be deployed if needed.
A U.S. official also told CNN earlier Tuesday that two Apache helicopters were sent to fly over the embassy in a show of force.
At this point, there are roughly 5,000 U.S. troops deployed to Iraq as part of the roughly 60,000 U.S. troops in the full region, reports Fox News. The Pentagon reports 14,000 troops have been added since May in response to increased threats from Iran.
In addition, the USS Harry S. Truman has been in the Gulf of Oman, with the aircraft carrier's strike group armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles and strike aircraft.
Earlier on Tuesday, more than 100 U.S. Marines arrived at the embassy for security measures after the crowd attacked the facility following the funerals of 25 Iranian-baked militia fighters who were killed in U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Sunday. The strikes were ordered after an American defense contractor killed in Iraq last Friday.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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