US sends more fighter jets and ships to Middle East ahead of possible Iranian retaliation

(WASHINGTON) –The Pentagon will send an additional fighter squadron and more warships to the Middle East to help defend Israel should Iran react militarily to this week’s assassination of Hamas’ top political leader in Tehran that Iran has blamed on Israel.

The United States will also maintain an aircraft carrier presence in the Middle East as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt that was on a short-term deployment to the Middle East.

The deployments follow President Joe Biden’s commitment to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday about “new defensive US military deployments” to the region.

Austin “ordered adjustments to U.S. military posture designed to improve U.S. force protection, to increase support for the defense of Israel, and to ensure the United States is prepared to respond to various contingencies,” the Pentagon said in a statement issued Friday.

Austin also ordered the deployment of an additional fighter squadron to the Middle East “reinforcing our defensive air support capability,” the statement said.

“Additionally, Secretary Austin has ordered additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command regions,” according to the statement.

“The Department is also taking steps to increase our readiness to deploy additional land-based ballistic missile defense,” it continued.

This week’s assassinations of Hamas’ senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Fouad Shukur, a top Hezbollah commander, in Beirut, have raised concerns that an Iranian retaliation could spark a broad regional beyond Israel’s war with Hamas.

The new deployments announced Friday will serve as a deterrent to prevent a larger conflict and are also intended to assist Israel should Iran reprise last April’s missile barrage of hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles targeted at Israel in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, that killed a top Iranian military leader.

The overwhelming majority of those drones and missiles were shot down by a combination of Israeli air defense systems and U.S. fighter jets that had been deployed to the region ahead of a possible Iranian retaliation.

The deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group will provide a consistent carrier presence in the region that might not have been possible if the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group ended its short-term deployment to the region on time.

Currently deployed to the western Pacific, it’s unclear when the Lincoln would arrive in the Middle East to replace the Roosevelt, which is currently in the Gulf of Oman.

There are six U.S. Navy destroyers currently deployed to the Middle East region, and it’s possible that some of them could be moved through the Suez Canal into the Eastern Mediterranean as part of the moves ordered by Austin on Friday.

There are currently two other destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean that are part of a regular mission to provide ballistic missile defense capabilities in that region.

Also stationed in the eastern Mediterranean are the USS Wasp amphibious assault ship and two other amphibious ships that are carrying the 2,200 Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU)

U.S. officials have said that the ships and the Marines aboard could be used to carry out an evacuation of U.S. personnel in the region should that become necessary.