U.S. forces move toward Israel as Iran threatens to attack [View all]
Source: Washington Post
The U.S. military is repositioning assets and moving additional forces into the Middle East and Europe to defend against a potential attack on Israel by Iran, U.S. officials said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the deployment of additional Navy destroyers and cruisers, both with offensive and defensive ballistic missile capabilities, as the Pentagon also takes steps to beef up land-based missile defense, Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a statement Friday evening. An additional squadron of fighter jets also will be deployed to the Middle East to reinforce defensive air support, she said.
The statement did not identify which vessels and units will be involved, but says they will be added to the “broad range of capabilities the U.S. military maintains in the region.”
Austin also has ordered the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier, and its associated escort ships to ensure that an aircraft carrier remains in the region, Singh said. Another carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, was in the Gulf of Oman on Friday and accompanied by several other warships after they recently moved out of the Persian Gulf, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The shift leaves open the possibility that they will move to Israel if they sail west around Yemen toward the Red Sea.
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