The 52 F-35A aircrafts, which are worth a whopping $4.2 billion, took off in quick succession from the Hill Air Force Base in Utah on Monday.

The move was revealed by Defence Secretary Ben Wallace as he updated MPs on the mounting crisis this evening.

The Russian President shook hands with Syria's dictator on Tuesday as visited the headquarters of his forces in Damascus to hear military reports, amid fears of a war between ally Iran and the US.

The move to draw up potential sanctions against Iraq came after confusion over the presence of U.S. troops, with Iraqis being sent a 'draft' withdrawal notice by 'mistake.'

Pompeo said the US-Australian alliance was unbreakable and American firefighters had flown to Australia to help.

Joe Biden delivered a foreign policy speech Tuesday where he laid out why it was impossible to believe the Trump administration's claims that Qassem Soleimani was an imminent threat.

In the early hours of this morning representative of the supreme leader in Iran, Saeed Jalili (pictured) retaliated and mocked President Trump by posting an image of the Iranian flag.

In a statement to MPs yesterday, Mr Wallace said he was taking 'urgent measures' to protect the UK's soldiers and citizens from potential reprisals by the Tehran regime.

Thousands of people have lined the streets of Qassem Soleimani hometown before the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force was laid to rest.

Brent crude futures, spiked by more than $3 per barrel in London before retreating as stock markets in London and Frankfurt opened lower before recovering some of its losses.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she'd return a phone call to Vice President Mike Pence Tuesday night after he called to inform her about the Iranian missile attacks on U.S. targets in Iraq.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strike which saw 22 ballistic missiles fired at two US bases in Iraq was 'not enough' to punish the US while vowing to kick all American forces out of the Middle East.

Iran's first retaliatory move was delivered in a 22-missile strike on US bases in Iraq last night. However, despite an array of devastating options it is believed the Ayatollah pulled his punches.

Donald Trump has said Iran is 'standing down' in the Middle East after a 'crushing revenge' strike largely failed to materialise Wednesday after the regime launched 22 missiles at US bases.

The US Federal Aviation Authority on Wednesday also barred US airliners from flying over Iraq and Iranian airspace in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.

Iran on Wednesday launched more than a dozen missiles against two US-led military bases in response to the US assassination of an Iranian military chief.

Australia could potentially find itself embroiled in another conflict in the Middle East after Iran launched a revenge rocket attack on American air bases in Iraq .

Hundreds of Australian troops will stay in Iraq after Iranian rockets fired on US-led military bases in the country. Australia has several hundred troops deployed to Iraq along with a team of diplomatic staff.

President Donald Trump has revealed that the U.S. is currently developing 'many' super-fast hypersonic missiles and boasted that the American weapons were 'big, powerful, lethal and fast'.

Lasers will be able to hit targets further away and through clouds and dust storms due to the technology. Israel is expected to test the laser weapons later this year, and deploy them in future.

Iranians prepared for missile strikes on two Iraqi airbases housing U.S. troops by making sure intelligence could detect the plans via satellites and eavesdropping, officials say.

PETER OBORNE: The firing of ballistic missiles at US bases is the biggest and most dangerous military confrontation between America and Iran since the American hostage crisis in 1979.

Abdollah Araghi said more attacks are coming after a strike on US bases failed to kill anyone, while air force commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh (pictured) said Iran was ready to kill up to 5,000 Americans.

The State Department warned that Iraq's access to its main account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York could be shut off if the Iraqi government asks American troops to leave.

American soldiers were either flown out of the al-Asad base (left) by 11pm on Tuesday local time or were sheltering in bunkers - waiting until the missiles fell at around 1:30am on Wednesday.

Four Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the attack, two military sources told Reuters. The military sources said the mortar bombs fell on a runway inside the base.

Jerry Holliman, 69, says he was exposed to Agent Orange, has battled cancer and diabetes and that he's now stuck in a Mississippi veterans home feeling abandoned by his country.

No coalition troops were injured in the Soviet-made Katyusha rocket attack on Camp Taji north of Baghdad on Tuesday night.

At the time the attack was launched at 1.35am on January 8, the US Army was flying seven unmanned aerial vehicles over Iraq to monitor bases where US-led coalition forces are deployed.

Damien Mander spent three years in Iraq training the country's paramilitary, before finding his new calling in Africa training poachers to secretly track and arrest poachers illegally hunting animals.

Taylor Swift has revealed she stayed politically silent for years, fearing that her career would come to a screeching halt like the Dixie Chicks if she spoke out.

American soldiers were using drones armed with missiles to monitor the streets of Sadr City in Baghdad in late 2007 when they noticed large crowds taking to the streets to welcome a VIP.

Veterans of Foreign Wars said Trump (left) must apologize for saying concussion suffered by troops in the Iraq attack is 'headaches' - as Joe Biden (right) branded comments 'disgusting'.

Three rockets slammed into the US embassy in Iraq's capital on Sunday in the first direct hit reported after months of close calls, as thousands kept up anti-government sit-ins across the country.

Andrew Demma, an Iraq War veteran who served a one-day prison sentence for child porn charges, will be re-sentenced in Dayton, Ohio. Federal officials say the conviction was 'unreasonably low.'

US-based actor Waleed Zuaiter, 49, takes the lead role in Channel 4's upcoming detective drama Baghdad Central, which is based on a book by American author Elliot Cola.

Bertie Carvel, 42, stars alongside Waleed Zuaiter, 49, in Channel 4's gripping new thriller Baghdad Central. The pair told how having an Arab Muslim as the lead character is nothing less than historic.

Diane Douglas 'completely broke down' when she discovered a massive metal container had been dumped on the grave of her son Allan, who was shot dead in Iraq, at Dyce Cemetery in Aberdeen.

Rookie cop Henry Solis went on the run in Mexico after shooting dead Salome Rodriguez Jr. after getting into a fight outside a Los Angeles bar in 2015. He was convicted of second-degree murder.

President Donald Trump fired Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman from the White House on Friday after the war hero testified against him in the House impeachment inquiry.

Gordon Sondland has become the second impeachment witness to be fired by President Trump, less than 48 hours after the Commander-in-chief was acquitted by the Senate on two charges.

'Fake News @CNN & MSDNC keep talking about "Lt. Col." Vindman as though I should think only how wonderful he was,' Trump wrote in a tweet on Saturday morning from the White House.

Lance Corporal Bernard Mongan, 33, was found dead in his room at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire. His body was so severely decomposed that his cause of death may never be established.

As part of his bid to become the next Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer has made political capital out of his legal career by highlighting the cases he has pursued on behalf of the 'underdog'.

'The president (left) this morning made a series of obviously false statements concerning Lt Col Vindman (right),' Vindman's lawyer, Ambassador David Pressman, said.

Between 1987 and 1991 she served as an MP with the Radical Party and made headline-grabbing policy pledges, such as offering to have sex with Saddam Hussein in return for peace in Iraq.

Grace Campbell, 25, whose Yorkshire-born father Alastair served as the Downing Street press secretary, told Sunday Mirror Notebook she's spent her life competing for her dad's attention.

A soldier stationed in Iraq spotted two men breaking into his Illinois garage. Soldier Richard Wharton was 6,500 miles away and using an app on his phone spotted the burglars walking out with tools.

America ranked top in a new survey looking at 'soft power' - a country's ability to influence others without using military or economic might - followed by Germany and the UK, researchers found.

It is my privilege to publish the defence of two scientists who could not abide the suppression of the evidence they had gathered regarding an alleged atrocity in Syria, writes PETER HITCHENS.