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President Donald Trump denied a New York Times report that his administration is planning to send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East in the event of hostilities with Iran, but said hed send a hell of a lot more if war breaks out.

I think its fake news, OK? Trump said of the Times report. Now would I do that? Absolutely. But I have not planned for that. If we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that.

Tensions are rising with the Islamic Republic after the Trump administration revoked waivers this month that allowed Iran to continue selling oil to some customers despite U.S. sanctions. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reported on Monday mysterious attacks on several vessels including oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed on Tuesday they had damaged Saudi oil pumping stations on Tuesday using drones.

Trump warned Iran against provocations yesterday. If they do anything, it will be a very bad mistake, he told reporters in the Oval Office.

The Times reported that the presidents top national security aides met on Thursday to discuss updated war plans with Iran. The plans envision sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, the Times said.

The Times said the plans do not call for a land invasion of Iran, which would require many more troops.

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Trump Says He'd Send More Than 120,000 Troops to Fight Iran

RIYADH/DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said armed drones struck two of its oil pumping stations on Tuesday, two days after the sabotage of oil tankers near the United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. military said it was braced for possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq from Iran-backed forces.

The attacks took place against a backdrop of U.S.-Iranian tension following Washingtons decision this month to try to cut Irans oil exports to zero and to beef up its military presence in the Gulf in response to what it said were Iranian threats.

Tuesdays attacks on the pumping stations more than 200 miles (320 km) west of Riyadh and Sundays on four tankers off Fujairah emirate have raised concerns that the United States and Iran might inching toward military conflict.

However, U.S. President Donald Trump denied a New York Times report that U.S. officials were discussing a military plan to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East to counter any attack or nuclear weapons acceleration by Iran.

Its fake news, OK? Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully were not going to have to plan for that. And if we did that, wed send a hell of a lot more troops than that, Trump told reporters.

Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said there would not be war with the United States despite mounting tensions over Iranian nuclear capabilities, its missile program and its support for proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

There wont be any war. The Iranian nation has chosen the path of resistance, he said in comments carried by Irans state TV. He repeated that Tehran would not negotiate with Washington over Irans 2015 nuclear deal with major powers.

The U.S. military cited possible imminent threats to its troops in Iraq and said they were now on high alert. The U.S. was responding to comments from a British deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State remnants in Iraq and Syria who said there had been no increase in the threat from Iran-backed militia.

The comments run counter to the identified credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian backed forces in the region, said Navy Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman at the U.S. militarys Central Command.

Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal a year ago and has sharply increased economic sanctions on Iran.

Under the accord negotiated by Trumps predecessor Barack Obama, Iran agreed to curb its uranium enrichment capacity, a potential pathway to a nuclear bomb, in return for sanctions relief.

The Trump administrations sanctions are designed to choke off Irans oil exports in an effort to force Iran to accept more stringent limits on its nuclear and missile programs as well as to rein in its support for proxy forces in the region.

U.S. national security agencies believe proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have sabotaged the tankers near the UAE rather than Iranian forces themselves, a U.S. official familiar with the latest U.S. assessments said.

The official said possible perpetrators might include Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iran-backed Shiite militias based in Iraq, but Washington had no hard evidence. On Monday, a U.S. official said Iran was a leading candidate for the tanker sabotage but the United States did not have conclusive proof.

Iran rejects the allegation of Iranian involvement and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that extremist individuals in the U.S. government were pursuing dangerous policies.

A senior European diplomat voiced skepticism that Trumps maximum pressure strategy would force Iran to capitulate.

Iran is not falling to its knees, said the diplomat on condition of anonymity, saying Iran could resume its nuclear work and leave Washington with no option but military action.

Does Trump want to go to war with Iran especially during an election campaign year? he asked.

Democratic Party candidates are already campaigning ahead of the November 2020 U.S. election aiming to stop Republican Trump being re-elected.

Houthi-run Masirah TV earlier said the group had carried out drone attacks on vital Saudi installations in response to continued aggression and blockade on Yemen.

A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthis for four years in Yemen to try to restore the internationally recognized government in a conflict widely seen as a Saudi-Iran proxy war.

The Houthis have hit Saudi cities with drones and missiles, but two Saudi sources told Reuters this was the first time a facility of the state-run Aramco had been attacked by drones.

Aramco said it had temporarily shut down the East-West pipeline, known as Petroline, to evaluate its condition. The pipeline mainly transports crude from the kingdoms eastern fields to the port of Yanbu, which lies north of Bab al-Mandeb.

The energy minister of Saudi Arabia, the worlds largest oil exporter, said the latest attacks caused a fire, now contained, and minor damage at one pump station, but did not disrupt oil output or exports of crude and petroleum products.

Oil prices rose on news of the attack on the Saudi pumping stations. Brent futures gained $1.01, or 1.4 percent, to settle at $71.24 a barrel.

Saudi Arabias cabinet said the terrorist attack against two Saudi oil tankers near the UAE reflected poorly on regional and international security, Saudi Press agency reported.

It quoted the cabinet as saying it was the international communitys shared responsibility to preserve maritime safety and oil tankers security in anticipation of any effects on energy markets, and the danger of that on world economy.

The UAE has not blamed anyone for what it called sabotage on the vessels. The UAE said the other tankers hit were a UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge and a Norwegian-registered oil products tanker near Fujairah, one of the worlds largest bunkering hubs just outside the Strait of Hormuz.

A fifth of global oil consumption passes through the strait from Middle East crude producers to much of the world.

A UAE official told Reuters the UAE was working with local and international partners from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Norway and France - which has a naval base in Abu Dhabi - to fully investigate the incident and to identify the people or entities responsible.

Reporting by Stephen Kalin and Rania El Gamal; Additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell, Asma Alsharif, Aziz El Yaakoubi and Davide Barbuscia in Dubai; Ahmed Aboulenein in Baghdad; Mark Hosenball, Doina Chiacu, Makini Brice, Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart in Washington; Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Grant McCool

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Saudi oil facilities attacked, U.S. sees threat in Iraq from ...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says Iran will begin keeping its excess uranium and heavy water, and he set a 60-day deadline for new terms to its nuclear deal before the country will resume higher uranium enrichment. Rouhani is seen here at a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday. Iranian Presidency Office/AP hide caption

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says Iran will begin keeping its excess uranium and heavy water, and he set a 60-day deadline for new terms to its nuclear deal before the country will resume higher uranium enrichment. Rouhani is seen here at a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday.

Updated at 9 a.m. ET

Iran's president says increased uranium enrichment will begin in 60 days if world powers don't shield it from U.S. sanctions, under the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement. The move is a signal to the world that Tehran is losing patience with U.S. efforts to punish Iran economically.

The news comes exactly one year after President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, calling it "a horrible one-sided deal." In August, the Trump administration restored some of the sanctions that were lifted as part of the deal.

President Hassan Rouhani announced on Wednesday that Tehran will start keeping larger amounts of enriched uranium and heavy water, instead of selling the excess to other countries, as the deal requires.

And he said that if the other countries in the accord haven't figured out how to shield Iran's oil and banking industries from U.S. sanctions, Iran will begin enriching uranium to higher levels, ending a commitment made under the deal. The return of U.S. sanctions has been damaging to Iran's economy.

"If the five countries came to the negotiating table and we reached an agreement and if they could protect our interests in the oil and banking sectors, we will go back to square one," Rouhani said, according to Reuters.

The Iran deal was negotiated by the Obama administration with the U.K., China, France, Germany and Russia. It paused sanctions in exchange for curbs and checks on Tehran's nuclear program.

Rouhani said the announced actions are in line with the deal's requirements.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton released a statement Sunday night that said the U.S. "is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force."

Iran said the aircraft carrier was simply being rotated in as scheduled and called Bolton's announcement "psychological warfare." The Pentagon confirmed the move was a scheduled rotation but said it had been "expedited," Reuters reports.

Brian Hook, a State Department adviser on Iran, tells NPR's Morning Edition that "we had indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against U.S. forces and or interest in the Middle East. So after we received these multiple credible threats by Iranian regime forces, we repositioned our military assets accordingly."

"If US and clients don't feel safe, it's because they're despised by the people of the region blaming Iran won't reverse that," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter.

China's foreign ministry said Wednesday that the U.S. had "further aggravated" tensions with Iran and called on all parties to exercise constraint, The Associated Press reports. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was meeting with Zarif on Wednesday, said the accord had been complicated by Washington's "irresponsible behavior."

NPR International Correspondent Peter Kenyon contributed to this report.

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John Bolton, President Donald Trump's national security adviser, announced on Sunday that the US would send the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its associated strike group to the waters near Iran to "send a message" and respond to vague threats.

But the US will be sending the powerful carrier to a job it's arguably ill-suited for, putting thousands of sailors at a major military disadvantage. And if a conflict were to arise, the sinking of a US aircraft carrier would be in Iran's sights.

Though the carrier's deployment to Iran's nearby waters may have been planned long ago, Bolton has been clear that the ship's return to the region marks a response to "a number of troubling and escalatory incident and warnings" from Iran.

Read more: Why the US suddenly decided to send an aircraft carrier and bombers to check Iran

DoD photo

While Bolton did not get into specifics, a report from Axios said Israel passed the US "information on an alleged Iranian plot to attack" US forces or interests in the region.

The Wall Street Journal cited US officials as saying new intelligence "showed that Iran drew up plans to target U.S. forces in Iraq and possibly Syria, to orchestrate attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb strait near Yemen through proxies and in the Persian Gulf with its own armed drones."

Read more: Iran harassed and humiliated the US Navy under Obama here's why it stopped under Trump

US aircraft carrier strike groups represent the highest order of naval power ever put to sea, but they're not the right tool for every job.

Caitlin Talmadge, an associate professor of security studies, said on Twitter that US carriers are "designed for operations on the open ocean."

As a floating air base with guided-missile destroyers and cruisers sailing nearby for antimissile defenses from land and sea, the carriers are best off when moving around far from the range of missiles fired from the shore.

The narrow, "confined waters of the Persian Gulf make carriers tremendously more vulnerable to asymmetric air, land, and naval threats," Talmadge wrote.

Iranian military personnel participate in the Velayat-90 war game near the Strait of Hormuz. REUTERS/Fars News/Hamed Jafarnejad

In the shallow brown waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow pass through which about one-fifth of the world's oil passes through, Iran's outdated submarines and missiles see a vastly uneven playing ground leveled out.

"Ideally, a Nimitz-class carrier would operate within comfortable range of its targets (based on the range of its air wing) but at sufficient stand-off distance to minimize the risk of enemy threats," Omar Lamrani, a senior military analyst at the geopolitical consulting firm Stratfor, told Business Insider. "This varies based on operating environment but is usually between 300 to 400 nautical miles."

Aircraft carriers do send a message and have been relied on for such by presidents for decades, but according to Talmadge, it's kind of empty in this situation.

Read more: Iran releases video of its submarine sinking a US aircraft carrier by exploiting a key weakness

In the Gulf wars and against militants such as ISIS, aircraft carriers made plenty of sense.

"Iraq has tiny coast, couldn't contest US carrier presence, so unusual situation," added Talmadge, who said that Iran was a different kind of beast.

But "Iran's geography & military capabilities, particularly presence of significant assets near Strait of Hormuz, make sailing carrier through Gulf a lot riskier, and w/ less benefit given US ability to deploy carriers in Arabian Sea & Indian Ocean instead," she said. Google Maps

In fact, the Persian Gulf, Iran's home waters, plays directly into their hands. One of Iran's favorite and best documented ways to harass the US Navy is to use fast-attack boats in a swarming attack.

Swarm boat attacks would "not be much of a danger in the open sea," where the carrier had room to maneuver, but could be a problem in the choked gulf.

"Iran has various systems that can be a threat within the Persian Gulf, including anti-ship cruise missiles, fast attack craft and swarm boats, mini-submarines, and even asymmetric tactics like UAV swarms that seek to harass rather than disable the carrier," Lamrani added.

Read more: Iran has found a new way to mess with the US Navy

Aircraft carriers lack onboard defenses against torpedo attacks, something that an old Iranian submarine could manage. In the noisy brown waters of the Persian Gulf, the US Navy may also struggle to track such small boats.

Furthermore, the Iranian media has fantasized for years about sinking an aircraft carrier. In the country's state-controlled media, the massive ships are often seen as targets ripe for sinking.

Iran's Ghadir submarine menaces behind a US carrier strike group in a propaganda video. Iranian TV via MEMRI

With US-Iranian relations hitting a startling new low, the Trump administration's decision to send an aircraft carrier to Tehran's home waters seems like a risky choice with little apparent payoff.

Accompanying the carrier deployment announced by Bolton was an increase in bombers in the region. Business Insider has previously reported that Iran is highly unlikely to attack even small exposed groups of US troops in the region because the response from nearby US air bases would all but obliterate the country.

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US sent Iran an aircraft-carrier 'message,' but it's at a ...

National Security Advisor John Bolton announced that the U.S. is sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East. Buzz60, Buzz60

WASHINGTON The Pentagon is sending a "very loud" message to Iran not to harm U.S. troopsin the Middle East after intelligence reports revealed a rising level of threats from Iranian paramilitary forces,a senior Defense official said Monday.

The commander of U.S. Central Command, Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, made an urgent request to bolster American forces in the region after observing multiple streams of intelligence that indicated threats to U.S. troops, according to the official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The threats were above and beyond what is usually detected.

There are hundreds of American troops in Iraq and Syria, as well as in surrounding Middle East countries.

The U.S.S. Lincoln aircraft carrier task force and a bomber group were dispatched to send the message to Iran to leave U.S. forces alone, the official said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talks to the media on the sidelines of the Arctic Council ministers' working dinner at the Arktikum museum in Rovaniemi, Finland, Monday, May 6, 2019. The U.S. is dispatching an aircraft carrier and other military resources to the Middle East following what it says are indications that Iran and its proxy forces are preparing to possibly attack U.S. forces in the region. (Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP)(Photo: Mandel Ngan, AP)

The Pentagon also announced Monday that it is bolstering its forces in the Middle East to counter Irans destabilizing activities and malign behavior.

Spokesman Charles Summers said the U.S. military has been prepared to deal with Iranian provocations.

However, the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force are considered a prudent step in response to indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against U.S. forces and our interests, Summers said. It ensures we have the forces we need in the region to respond to contingencies and to defend U.S. forces and interests in the region."

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That announcement follows a statement released Sunday night by John Bolton, President Trump's national security adviser. Bolton referred to "troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran as the reason for the deployment of the Lincoln and the bombers.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted Monday that Iran could not escape blame by sending proxy forces to attack U.S. troops. Any attack, he said, would be attributed to Iran andGen. Qassem Soleimani, who heads the elite Quds Force of Iran's hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

"We will not distinguish between attacks from Shia militias in #Iraq & the #IRGC that controls them, Rubio tweeted.

The Pentagon has a history of bad blood with Iranian forces in the region, particularly in Iraq. During the peak of fighting in Iraq, U.S. commanders produced evidence of sophisticated explosives used to kill U.S. troops. Known as explosively formed penetrators, the weapons required expertise and manufacturing that wasn't available to most militants in Iraq.

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Iran poses potential harm to U.S. troops; military forces ...