US aircraft carrier arrives in the Middle East as | Political News
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three accompanying warships have arrived in the Middle East, bringing a renewed potential that President Donald Trump might decide to order airstrikes on Iran over its crackdown on protesters.
The carrier, along with three destroyers, “is currently deployed to the Middle East to promote regional security and stability,” U.S. Central Command said Monday on social media.
The strike group was in the Indian Ocean, Central Command said, and not in the Arabian Sea, which borders Iran. It will convey hundreds of extra service members to the area, which has not had a U.S. aircraft carrier since the USS Gerald R. Ford was ordered in October to sail to the Caribbean as half of a stress marketing campaign on then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump told reporters last week that the ships have been despatched to the area “just in case.” “We have a massive fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it,” he said.
Trump earlier had threatened army motion if Iran carried out mass executions of prisoners or killed peaceable demonstrators during a crackdown on protests that started in late December. At least 5,973 people have been killed and more than 41,800 detained, according to activists. The official Iranian death toll is way decrease, at 3,117 useless.
More not too long ago, Trump appeared to have backed away from doable motion, claiming Iran halted the hangings of 800 detained protesters. He has not elaborated on the source of the declare, which Iran’s top prosecutor called “completely false.”
However, Trump seems to be maintaining his choices open. On Thursday aboard Air Force One, he said his threatened army motion would make last 12 months’s U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear websites “look like peanuts” if the authorities proceeded with deliberate executions of some protesters.
The aircraft carrier hosts a number of squadrons of aircraft, including F-35 Lightning II fighter jets and F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets. Meanwhile, the destroyers convey with them tons of of missiles, which might embody dozens of Tomahawk land assault cruise missiles.
In addition to the aircraft carrier and its {hardware}, the U.S. army said the Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet now has a presence in the area.
Analysts who observe flight-tracking data have observed dozens of U.S. army cargo planes also heading to the area.
The exercise is comparable to last 12 months when the U.S. moved in air protection {hardware}, including a Patriot missile system, in anticipation of an Iranian counterattack following the bombing of three key nuclear websites. Iran launched over a dozen missiles at Al Udeid Air Base days after the strikes.
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