US President Donald Trump on Saturday attended the return of the bodies of the first six US soldiers killed during the escalating war with Iran.
Trump, wearing a white “USA” baseball cap and accompanied by several Cabinet members, saluted as each flag-draped case was carried from a military transport plane at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the remains of US troops killed overseas are returned to American soil.
The troops were killed last Sunday when a drone struck a key US command centre in Kuwait, a day after the United States and Israel launched a sweeping military campaign against Iran.
Earlier, the United States condemned Iran’s drone strikes earlier this week on an Azerbaijan border region, describing the attack as a “needless escalation” of aggression by Tehran during the Middle East war.
The State Department said Thursday’s “unprovoked drone attack” targeted an airport and school in Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhchivan bordering Iran, and that innocent civilians were injured.
“These strikes are a flagrant violation of Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and a needless escalation of Iran’s aggression,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement, adding that attacks on American partners in the region “are unacceptable and will be met with resolute US support for those partners.”
AFP
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