WASHINGTON: The U.S. military deployed additional forces to Kenya on Monday to bolster security at a key airfield after an alleged attack by al Shabaab militants on Sunday that killed three Americans, the military’s Africa Command said.
The attack presented Washington with yet another crisis just as the Pentagon grapples with a rapidly escalating standoff with Iran following a Friday U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.
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As speculation swirls about how Tehran might respond to the strike, the U.S. military sought to separate the two events, saying: “The U.S. Africa Command does not assess yesterday’s attack by al Shabaab is linked to Iran.”
Earlier in the day, Iran announced that it would abandon limitations on enriching uranium, taking a further step back from commitments to a 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers, but it would continue to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
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Iran had been expected to announce its latest stance on the deal this weekend. But its announcement coincided with a major escalation of hostilities with Washington following the U.S. killing of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike on Friday in Baghdad.
State television said Iran would not respect any limits set down in the pact on the country’s nuclear work: whether the limit on its number of uranium enrichment centrifuges to its enrichment capacity, the level to which uranium could be enriched, the amount of stockpiled enriched uranium or Iran’s nuclear Research and Development activities.
