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Soldiers take part in a Patriot missile reloading exercise at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on January 16, 2018. Amid rising tensions with Iran, a base in Saudi Arabia is being prepared for a Patriot missile defense battery ahead of the deployment of hundreds of U.S. troops, U.S. media reports say.

Soldiers take part in a Patriot missile reloading exercise at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on January 16, 2018. Amid rising tensions with Iran, a base in Saudi Arabia is being prepared for a Patriot missile defense battery ahead of the deployment of hundreds of U.S. troops, U.S. media reports say. (U.S. Army)

MANAMA, Bahrain — Hundreds of U.S. troops are set to deploy to Saudi Arabia amid growing tensions with Iran, U.S. media reports said Thursday.

About 500 servicemembers are expected to be sent to Prince Sultan Air Base in the desert east of the Saudi capital of Riyadh, unnamed Defense Department officials told CNN and the New York Times on Wednesday. Defense officials at U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to Stars and Stripes inquiries about the deployment.

Preparations were underway at the base for a Patriot missile defense battery, a runway and airfield improvements, officials told CNN, which was the first to report the deployment. Security assessments indicate Iranian missiles would have a hard time striking the remote base, said CNN.

The Pentagon had previously announced plans to deploy some 2,000 troops to the Middle East, following what U.S. officials described as an increased threat from Tehran or its proxies. The military had not detailed locations where troops would be sent, but the Saudi base is one of them, CNN said, citing officials who said further details would be announced next week.

The troop deployments were first announced in the weeks after the White House abruptly said in May it was sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, along with a B-52 bomber task force, to the region to protect U.S. forces from unspecified Iranian threats.

Since May, six oil tankers have been damaged in attacks in the Gulf of Oman that the U.S. has blamed on Iran. Tehran has denied any involvement.

Last week, a British warship in the Persian Gulf prevented three Iranian patrol boats from stopping a British merchant ship as it was entering the Strait of Hormuz, a major thoroughfare for the world’s oil shipments, which Iran has threatened to block.

In Iraq, rocket attacks have been reported in recent months in the area of Baghdad surrounding the U.S. Embassy and at bases that house U.S. and other international military trainers. Some officials suspect Iran-backed militias operating in the country are behind the attacks.

The Trump administration has been ratcheting up pressure on Iran through increased sanctions since withdrawing last year from a 2015 international agreement restricting Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran, which has protested against the pressure campaign, has said it would increase its uranium enrichment beyond levels allowed under the nuclear accord.

Tensions escalated further in June after Iran shot down a U.S. drone. President Trump approved retaliatory military strikes but halted them minutes before they were launched.

Both Washington and Tehran have said they don’t want war, but European leaders and others fear that the escalations could tip into a conflict if not checked.

The Pentagon had announced plans in May to extend the deployment of some 600 troops from a Patriot missile battalion already deployed to the Middle East, and deploy an additional 900 servicemembers, including Patriot missile operators, to bolster security for U.S. troops already in the region.

The following month, U.S. Central Command chief Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie requested another 1,000 troops, the Pentagon said. That deployment included an Air Force fighter squadron, an engineering element and manned and unmanned intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets.

The deployment to the kingdom comes amid criticism of the U.S. government’s support for a Saudi-led coalition waging a war against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Thousands of civilians have been killed in errant airstrikes, many involving U.S.-made munitions.

The Trump administration has also faced backlash over its response to the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, in which high-ranking Saudi officials have been implicated.

garland.chad@stripes.com Twitter: @chadgarland

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Chad is a Marine Corps veteran who covers the U.S. military in the Middle East, Afghanistan and sometimes elsewhere for Stars and Stripes. An Illinois native who’s reported for news outlets in Washington, D.C., Arizona, Oregon and California, he’s an alumnus of the Defense Language Institute, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Arizona State University.

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