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Fate of American soldiers with pressure rising (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

atropos

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'fate of american' is the definition.
'atropos' can be an answer for 'fate' (one of the Fates of Greek mythology). I'm unsure of the 'of american' bit.

'soldiers with pressure rising' is the wordplay.
'soldiers' becomes 'TA' (abbreviation for Territorial Army).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'pressure' becomes 'sopor' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'rising' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (going up in a down clue).
'ta' after 'sopor' is 'soporta'.
'soporta' back-to-front is 'ATROPOS'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for atropos that I've seen is " Fate!".)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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