B-52 bombers arrive in Middle East, US military says

American B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East, the US military said Saturday, a day after Washington announced their deployment in a warning to Iran.

"B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base's 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the US Central Command area of responsibility," the military command for the Middle East and surrounding countries said in a post on social media.

The United States announced on Friday evening that it was sending the bombers, fighter and tanker aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the Middle East.

"Should Iran, its partners, or its proxies use this moment to target American personnel or interests in the region, the United States will take every measure necessary to defend our people," Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement on the deployment.

Iran stages rallies to mark 1979 hostage crisis

Iranian demonstrators gathered on Sunday outside the former US embassy in Tehran to mark the anniversary of the 1979 hostage crisis that has for decades shaped relations between Washington and Tehran.

The hostage crisis began in November 1979 following the Islamic revolution led by Iran's late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini which ousted the Western-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

Students loyal to Khomeini stormed the embassy building and held 52 staff hostage for 444 days while demanding that Washington hand over Iran's recently toppled shah, who was being treated in the United States for cancer.

Washington officially broke off relations with Tehran in 1980, midway through the crisis, and they have been frozen ever since."Death to Israel, Death to America!" chanted crowds of Iranians outside the building, which is currently a museum known as the "Den of Spies", and covered with striking anti-American murals. Others burnt the Israeli and US flags.