A U.S. aircraft carrier strike group rushes toward the Persian Gulf. Decades-old B-52 bombers rumble down runways at desert air bases. The Pentagon, meanwhile, routes a Patriot missile battery and an amphibious supply ship to return to the region.
In recent days, the US has announced the deployment of an array of military power to the Middle East as tensions grow with Iran. On Friday, the US Department of Defense approved the addition of the USS Arlington and a Patriot battery to US Central Command to fill a request last week. The additional forces come as tensions with Iran are rising and the US has warned Iran that any attack by Iranian forces or their proxies will be met with retaliation.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will cancel the Moscow leg of his Russia trip, but will meet President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Black Sea resort of Sochi as planned on Tuesday, a State Department official said.
European countries said on Thursday they wanted to preserve Iran’s nuclear deal and rejected ‘ultimatums’ from Tehran, after Iran scaled back curbs on its nuclear program and threatened moves that might breach the pact.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have cautioned against an escalation in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear deal after Tehran said it would stop abiding by parts of the deal and U.S. President Donald Trump said he was open to talks with Iranian leaders.
In a highly unusual move, national security adviser John Bolton convened a meeting at CIA headquarters last week with the Trump administration’s top intelligence, diplomatic and military advisers to discuss Iran, according to six current U.S. officials.
The United States tightened the screws further on Iran with sanctions on its metal industry on the day Tehran said it was suspending some of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Israel will not let Iran attain nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday just hours after Iran announced that it will continue its nuclear program.
Iranian President Hassan Rouani threatened Wednesday to resume enrichment of uranium if the terms of the 2015 nuclear accord, from which the U.S. withdrew this time last year, were not renegotiated within 60 days among the powers that remain signatories to it.
A U.S. official says intelligence information that prompted the Pentagon to send an aircraft carrier and Air Force bombers to the Middle East included indications that Iran had moved short-range ballistic missiles aboard boats in or near the Persian Gulf.
Four B-52 bombers are being deployed to the Middle East in response to what administration officials said earlier this week are threats of a possible attack by Iran or allied fighters on American troops in the region. Two of the bombers are expected to leave Tuesday from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, arriving at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Wednesday, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.
Iran is ‘considering retaliating against U.S. interests in the Gulf’ in response to the Trump administration’s ever-tightening restrictions against the Islamic Republic, according to an anonymous senior Israeli intelligence official.
Iranian President Hassan Rohani has said Tehran will resume high-level enrichment of uranium if world powers do not protect its interests against U.S. sanctions.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unannounced visit to Baghdad, where he met with Iraqi officials to discuss the United States’ security concerns amid what he called ‘escalating’ Iranian activity.
The United States received information from Israel concerning an alleged Iranian plot to attack American interests in the Gulf, Axios reported on Monday.
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton says a carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln recently deployed to the Persian Gulf is “in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran.
Iran’s intelligence minister has admitted publicly for the first time that Christianity is spreading throughout Iran.
The United States’ allies in Europe have criticized its recent decisions to restrict oil trade with Iran and to limit the extension of waivers for nuclear non-proliferation projects.
Iran will continue with low-level uranium enrichment in line with its nuclear deal with world powers, Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani was quoted as saying on Saturday, despite a U.S. move to stop it.
A White House decision to dispatch an aircraft carrier and other military resources to send a message to Iran followed “clear indications” that Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were preparing to possibly attack US forces in the region, a defense official told the Associated Press.