US Accuses Iran of Planning to Attack US Troops in Iraq

Allegation reportedly originated in Israeli intelligence

A US buildup of military forces in the Middle East, and threats to use force against Iran are now being justified by US officials who claim to have “clear indications” that Iran was plotting to attack US forces in the area, in Iraq according to some reports.

Exactly what these “clear indications” actually were is unclear. Israeli media, however, gave credit to Israeli intelligence, saying they’d passed on their own report of a “possible Iran plot,” and the White House went from there.

This intelligence doesn’t seem great, as officials say that Mossad was unclear what Iran was actually planning to do, but that tensions are on the rise, and there were several scenarios that Mossad came up with that might happen.

Israel is always keen to drum up tensions between the US and Iran at any rate, so they probably didn’t need a lot of confidence to pass it along to the US and hope something came of it.

Iran, by contrast, accused the US of “talking up” the threat as a justification for a buildup that the US Navy had scheduled some time ago. The Navy has already scheduled the aircraft carrier deployment nearly a month ago.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.