The United States is sending approximately 3,000 soldiers to the Middle East after thousands of people stormed the compound of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, three U.S. defense officials and one U.S. military official confirmed to NBC News on Friday. The news came hours after an American airstrike killed Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's secretive Quds Force and one of the country's most powerful figures, but U.S. defense officials said the deployments were not in response to that.
