Austin Orders U.S. Forces to Be Ready to Deploy as Middle East Heats Up
The U.S. is further beefing up its military presence in the Middle East, sending in additional troops and putting others on standby while keeping an aircraft carrier on station as the region prepares for more violence.
The moves come after Israeli forces killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon on Friday, in a strike that threatens to plunge the region into a wider war.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday ordered the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its attached destroyers to remain in the region, just a month after rerouting them to the Middle East while they were on a planned deployment to the Pacific. The directive comes days after the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group left its home port in Virginia for a scheduled cruise, potentially creating a two-carrier presence in the Middle East for the second time since the summer.
The Pentagon also announced that the U.S. will be sending additional “air-support capabilities in the coming days,” and that the USS Wasp Amphibious Ready Group will remain in the eastern Mediterranean. The group includes the amphibious ships USS New York and USS Oak Hill, along with thousands of Marines capable of performing civilian evacuations from Lebanon if necessary. The Wasp, which can launch small boats ashore, is also loaded with Marine-flown F-35B fighter planes, giving military planners an extra aerial punch if needed.
Those ships have been patrolling the Mediterranean since June and have been at sea since April. The Wasp group replaced a similar group of amphibious ships led by the USS Bataan, which had its own deployment to the region extended several times and ended up spending eight months at sea before heading home in March. (Read more from “Austin Orders U.S. Forces to Be Ready to Deploy as Middle East Heats Up” HERE)
