Kharg Island<\/a> and coastal sites near the Strait of Hormuz, according to United States officials quoted by The Washington Post newspaper.<\/p>\nThe plans, which fall short of a full invasion, could involve raids by special operations and conventional infantry troops, the Post reported on Saturday, exposing US personnel to Iranian drones and missiles, ground fire, and improvised explosives.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
Whether President Donald Trump would approve any of those plans remains uncertain, according to the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the Commander in Chief maximum optionality. It does not mean the president has made a decision,\u201d White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, responding to questions over the Post report.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has deployed US Marines to the Middle East as the war in Iran stretches into its fifth week, and has also been planning to send thousands of soldiers from the army\u2019s 82nd Airborne to the region.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said about 3,500 additional soldiers arrived in the Middle East on board the USS Tripoli.<\/p>\n
The sailors and marines are with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and arrived in the region on March 27, along with \u201ctransport and strike fighter aircraft, as well as amphibious assault and tactical assets\u201d, according to CENTCOM.<\/p>\n
Officials speaking to The Washington Post said discussions within the administration over the past month have touched upon the possible seizure of Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil export hub in the Gulf, and raids into other coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz to find and destroy weapons that can target commercial and military shipping.<\/p>\n
According to the report, one person said the objectives under consideration would probably take \u201cweeks, not months\u201d to complete, while another put the potential timeline at \u201ca couple of months\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon had not responded on Saturday to the Post\u2019s requests for comment. Iran has yet to respond to the report.<\/p>\n
The report comes as Pakistan, which shares a 900km-long (559-mile) border with Iran, mediates between Washington \u200cand Tehran, hosting two days of talks starting on Sunday with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt.<\/p>\n
Iranian threats<\/p>\n
The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Sunday the \u201cenemy openly sends messages of negotiation and dialogue and secretly plans a ground attack\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnaware that our men are waiting for the arrival of American soldiers on the ground to set fire to them and punish their regional partners forever. Our firing continues. Our missiles are in place,\u201d the Tasnim news agency reported, quoting Ghalibaf.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur determination and faith have increased. We are aware of the enemy\u2019s weaknesses, and we clearly see the effects of fear and terror in the enemy\u2019s army.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was not clear whether Ghalibaf was responding to the Post report.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Ghalibaf had warned that intelligence reports suggested that \u201cIran\u2019s enemies\u201d \u2060were planning to occupy an Iranian island with support \u200cfrom an unnamed country in the region<\/a>.<\/p>\nHe said any such attempt would be met with targeted attacks on the \u201cvital infrastructure\u201d of the regional country \u2013 which he did not name \u2013 that assists in the operation.<\/p>\n
Tasnim quoted an unnamed military source as saying on Wednesday that Iran could open a new front at the mouth of the Red Sea if military action takes place on \u201cIranian islands or anywhere else in our lands\u201d.<\/p>\n
The source told Tasnim that Iran can pose a \u201ccredible threat\u201d in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, \u2060which lies between Yemen and Djibouti.<\/p>\n
Tasnim later quoted an \u201cinformed source\u201d claiming that Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, are prepared to play a role \u201cif there is a need to control the Bab al-Mandeb Strait to further punish the enemy\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The plans, which fall short of a full invasion, could involve raids by special operations and conventional infantry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,801,129,4379,3,21,19,22,20,25,1209,231941,24],"class_list":["post-552147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-iran","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-us-israel-war-on-iran","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}