President Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, asked the Pentagon last fall to develop military options for a strike against Iran following a mortar attack in Baghdad by a Tehran-backed militant group. “It definitely rattled people,” one former senior U.S. administration official told the Wall Street Journal. The mortar attack targeted Baghdad’s diplomatic quarter, which is home to the U.S. Embassy. The three mortars, however, landed in an open lot and nobody was harmed in the attack. In speech in September, Bolton sent a stark warning to Tehran that there would be “hell to pay” if the country threatened America or its allies.

Source: Fox News January 13, 2019 15:33 UTC