The Pentagon says it expects more attacks on the Baghdad embassy by Iran-backed militias and has warned the US is ready to defend itself with more troops after 750 reinforcements were dispatched to Kuwait.
The US embassy was besieged on Tuesday by thousands of pro-Iran demonstrators and militants protesting airstrikes that killed 25 of their comrades on Sunday night.
'The provocative behavior has been out there for months... So do I think they may do something? Yes. And they will likely regret it,' Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Thursday.
'We are prepared to exercise self-defense, and we are prepared to deter further bad behavior from these groups, all of which are sponsored, directed and resourced by Iran.'
It comes as elite Iraqi troops deployed to secure the embassy's 'Green Zone' today, a day after the pro-Iran mob ended its riot at the gates of the complex.
The Pentagon said USAF strikes on Sunday had been in retaliation for months of assaults against the US by Kataeb Hezbollah, which belongs to Iraq's government-sanctioned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).
Those attacks climaxed last Friday with a missile attack which killed a US contractor at a base 170 miles north of Baghdad.
The ease with which the commanders and supporters of the PMF breezed through the heavily-fortified zone around the embassy this week highlighted the precarious balance between Baghdad's allies in Washington and Tehran.
On Thursday, more than a dozen black armored vehicles of the US-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service deployed on the embassy's streets in the capital's Green Zone to reinforce security there.
Pro-Iran slogans still covered the entire length of the thick concrete walls breached by the mob.
But the PMF flags planted by protesters on the embassy's outer walls, as well as photographs of the killed fighters put up in mourning, had been cleared away according to an AFP correspondent.
Embassy staff could be seen cleaning up a reception area the protesters had broken into and torched, and cranes were used to move rocks and debris they had pelted at the embassy.
The attack sparked comparisons with the 1979 hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran and the deadly 2012 attack on the US consulate in Libya's second city Benghazi.
'What happened in front of the US embassy was an attempt to draw people's eyes away from the popular protests now in their fourth month,' said Ahmed Mohammad Ali, a student protester in the southern hotspot city of Nasiriyah.
We're still here, protesting for change and hoping for victory,' he told AFP.
Ali's determination came despite the attempted killings of two activists in Nasiriyah overnight, both of whom survived.
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