 Pentagon increases number of U.S. troops killed by Iran in Iraq to 603 Washington DC (UPI) Apr 05, 2019 - The Pentagon has revised the estimate on the number of U.S. troops in Iraq killed by Iranian-backed militias to 603, from roughly 500, between 2003 and 2011. During a State Department briefing Tuesday, Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said the revised figures are taken from recently declassified U.S. military documents. The original estimate came from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford in 2015. "We were not always able to attribute the casualties that we had to Iranian activity, although many times we suspected it was Iranian activity, even though we did not necessarily have the forensics to support that," Dunford told Congress during a confirmation hearing. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is Iran's elite military force that protects the regime from internal and external threats, is responsible for 17 percent of all U.S. service personnel deaths in Iraq. Iran supplied weaponry to Shiite militias fighting U.S. occupation. "These casualties were the result of explosively formed penetrators, other improvised explosive devices, improvised rocket-assisted munitions, rockets, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, small-arms, sniper, and other attacks in Iraq," Navy Cmdr. Sean Robertson, a Pentagon spokesman, told Military Times. In addition, "thousands" of Iraqi troops and civilians were killed in attacks by Iranian proxy forces, according to Hook. Most deaths occurred during the U.S. surge in Iraq, the Pentagon. President George W. Bush added 20,000 more troops into the country, mainly Baghdad, in January 2017. Hook told reporters the United States continues to pressure Iran with sanctions. "We are imposing costs on the regime for behaving as an outlaw expansionist regime," he said. "The regime is weaker today than when we took office two years ago. Its proxies are also weaker. Unless the regime demonstrates a change in policy and behavior, the financial challenges facing Tehran will mount."
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Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on Iraq to demand US troops leave "as soon as possible", warning that Washington is plotting to remove the Iraqi government.
The remarks came during a visit to Tehran on Saturday by Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, whose country is under pressure from the United States to distance itself from Iran.
"You should take actions to make sure the Americans withdraw their troops from Iraq as soon as possible because wherever they have had an enduring presence, forcing them out has become problematic," Khamenei told Abdel Mahdi.
"The current government and parliament in Iraq and the political figures are not what the US desires; they plot to remove them from the political scene of Iraq," he said, according to his official website.
Abdel Mahdi, on his first official trip to Iran, also met Saturday with President Hassan Rouhani, who visited Iraq last month.
Baghdad is under pressure from Washington to limit ties with its neighbour, particularly after the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last year and hit Tehran with sanctions.
Iran has close but complicated ties with Iraq, with significant influence among its Shiite political groups.
The two countries fought a bloody war from 1980 to 1988 and Tehran's influence in Baghdad grew after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled the government of Saddam Hussein.
Iran was the first country to respond to Iraqi calls for help after Islamic State group jihadists captured Mosul in 2014 and threatened to overrun Baghdad and Kirkuk.
Tehran dispatched "military advisors" and equipment overnight along with the Revolutionary Guards elite Qods Force commander Qasem Soleimani to prevent IS jihadists from approaching its western borders.
- Terrorism blacklist -
According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington is planning to designate the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation, an unprecedented move that would escalate tensions between the two countries.
The newspaper, quoting unnamed officials, said President Donald Trump's administration would announce the long-mulled decision as soon as Monday.
But it said that the Pentagon and the CIA were concerned the move would increase risks for US troops without doing much more to damage the Iranian economy.
Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif slammed the move as "another US disaster" in the making, and warned Washington on Sunday of the consequences it would have.
"#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO designation of the IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region," Zarif said on Twitter, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"In fact, they seek to drag US into a quagmire on his behalf. @realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster," he added.
Iran's parliament has vowed to retaliate by passing an urgent bill putting American troops on a terrorism blacklist alongside the Islamic State group, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported.
"Even though we believe one should not play along with America's extreme acts, the reality is that we must retaliate," the head of Iran's influential national security and foreign policy commission, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, told ISNA.
A statement signed by a majority of MPs in support of the bill said any action against Iran's national security and its armed forces was "crossing a red line" and the US administration would "regret" its decision.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp was formed after the 1979 Islamic revolution with a mission to defend the new system.
Designating the Guards as a terrorist organisation would "effectively be a service to terrorists," Falahatpisheh said, since they have "the biggest role in combatting terrorism" in the region.
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