The Defense Department is moving and aircraft into strategic positions across the Middle East to improve U.S. force protection, increase the defense of Israel, and ensure the United States can respond to a variety of contingencies, said Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh at a press briefing on Monday.
The steps being taken include deployment of an additional fighter squadron to the Middle East, reinforcing the defensive air support capability. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is sending the USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier Strike Group to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group in the Central Command area of responsibility.
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. The Department is also taking steps to increase our readiness to deploy additional land-based ballistic missile defense.
These actions are meant to prepare for and mitigate against the possibility of regional escalation by Iran or Iran’s partners and proxies.
According to an anonymously sourced story in Axios, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is saying that Iran and Hezbollah may attack Israel within the next 24 to 48 hours. Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate for Israel’s killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists last week.
“The sources said Blinken stressed [in a call to G-7 leaders] that the US believes Iran and Hezbollah will both retaliate,” according to Axios, which added that the U.S. “doesn’t know the exact timing of the attacks.”
The news comes the same day that reports have come in about an unknown number of U.S. personnel injured in a suspected rocket attack on Al Asad Air Base in Iraq on Monday
“Initial indications are that several U.S. personnel were injured,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Base personnel are conducting a post-attack damage assessment. We will provide updates as more information becomes available.”
Since the horrific Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which resulted in the most Jewish people killed since Hitler’s Holocaust, the Secretary of Defense has reiterated that the United States will keep America’s “ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel.”
Already in the region is the USS WASP Amphibious Ready Group / Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) operating in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
Austin spoke yesterday with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to reiterate the U.S. support for Israel’s security and right to self-defense against threats from Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, Houthis, and other Iranian-backed terrorist groups.
When Trump was president the world wasn’t tearing itself apart. Or on the verge of a major recession.
Now will Grandpa Bloodstains release the weapons Israel is due?