U.S. forces move toward Israel as Iran threatens to attack

Fighter jets and aircrew on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. (Seaman Ryan Holloway/U.S. Navy/AP)

By Dan Lamothe August 2, 2024

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.

The moves come after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah vowed to retaliate after the killing this week of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr.

Haniyeh was assassinated in a brazen attack at a residence in Tehran secured by the country’s vaunted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Israel has not claimed responsibility, but U.S. officials privately acknowledge it was behind the killing. Washington was not apprised of the operation beforehand and had no role in it, officials have said.

Shukr was killed in an Israeli airstrike in a Beirut suburb in retaliation for an attack last weekend in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed several children while they played on a soccer field.

The events have brought the region closer to full-blown conflict than perhaps at any point since the Gaza war began 10 months ago with a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas.

Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and a group of militias in Iraq and Syria all receive weapons and training from Iran, part of a vast anti-Israel, anti-U.S. network Tehran has supported for years.

U.S. officials had revealed little until Friday evening about how they were preparing for the possibility of an attack, but the White House said Thursday night that President Biden had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and affirmed his commitment to Israeli security “against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.”

“The President discussed efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats, including against ballistic missiles and drones, to include new defensive U.S. military deployments,” said a brief statement summarizing the two leaders’ call.

The recent bloodshed follows a sprawling drone and missile attack by Iran on Israel in April in which the U.S. military intervened, taking down numerous drones and missiles as Israeli forces intercepted others. Iran launched that attack after an Israeli airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria killed two Iranian generals and other Iranian military personnel.

“As we have demonstrated since October and again in April, the United States’ global defense is dynamic and the Department of Defense retains the capability to deploy on short notice to meet evolving national security threats,” Singh said in her statement on Friday. “The United States also remains intently focused on de-escalating tensions in the region and pushing for a ceasefire as part of a hostage deal to bring the hostages home and end the war in Gaza.”

Among the options available to assist are fighter jets aboard the Theodore Roosevelt, and the naval destroyers nearby, including the USS Daniel Inouye, USS Russell, USS Cole, USS Laboon and USS Michael Murphy. The destroyer USS John S. McCain is also in the region, remaining in the Persian Gulf as the other American warships have moved, said the U.S. official familiar with the repositioning.

Five other U.S. warships are in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and could assist Israel if called upon. They include the USS Wasp, USS Oak Hill, USS New York, USS Bulkeley and USS Roosevelt.

The Bulkeley and the Roosevelt are destroyers with offensive and defensive ballistic missile capabilities, while the other three form the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group, a three-ship team of more than 4,000 U.S. Marines and sailors that includes Marine Corps fighter jets, an infantry battalion and other combat forces from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. ⍐