United States sends thousands more troops to Middle East

The U.S. military has dispatched around 9,000 troops to the Middle East, an unnamed U.S. official told The Associated Press Thursday. More than 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines were en route on an aircraft carrier strike group and an amphibious readiness group, the official said. The ships could arrive in the region by the end of October. As of July, more than 50,000 U.S. service members were operating across the Middle East, U.S. Central Command reported. The USS Abraham Lincoln left the area in August after a record of 250 days at sea. 

WORLD reached out to the White House and Defense Department for comment but did not immediately hear back.

What has Trump said about Iran? The deployment followed remarks from President Donald Trump that he was ensuring the war in Iran would be ended very quickly. Iran was ready to fold up, he remarked while speaking in Denton, Texas, at the Peterbilt Motors facility. He added that he believed the United States would win the seven-month-long war soon after the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

Trump also told reporters earlier Thursday that Iran was likely connected to the FlyDubai co-pilot who stabbed his captain in a flight to Tel Aviv. The co-pilot then attempted to crash an Israel-bound flight on Wednesday. Trump said if a link to Iran was established, the United States would retaliate. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the attacker underwent radical Islamist indoctrination.