The Pentagon is bolstering its presence in the Middle East with ships, fighter planes and ballistic missile defense vessels as Israel faces threats from Iran to avenge assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.
The moves announced on Friday by the US Department of Defense came a day after the White House said that US President Joe Biden promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the US would provide new “defensive US military deployments.”
The deployments include sending additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the US European and Central Command regions, Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokesperson, said in a statement on Friday.
Photo: US Navy via AP
The US is also taking steps “to increase our readiness to deploy additional land-based ballistic missile defense,” Singh said, without explaining those moves.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also ordered steps including moving an additional squadron of fighter jets to the region and dispatching the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is now in the Gulf of Oman, the statement said.
However, many of the moves announced, including sending the Abraham Lincoln carrier group, which is now in the Pacific, would take weeks to achieve, even though Iran might be poised to strike Israel imminently.
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said in a statement on Friday that he spoke with Austin and British Secretary of State for Defence John Healey, and provided “a situational assessment in light of recent security developments.”
Fear has risen of a spillover from the nearly 10-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as Iran threatened retaliation for the assassination in Tehran this week of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Iran-backed group.
Thousands of mourners on Friday converged around the flag-draped coffin of Haniyeh, in the emirate of Qatar as the fallout surged from his death in an alleged Israeli attack.
The funeral ceremony in Doha, Qatar’s capital, attended by members of Gaza’s militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups, as well as Qatari and Iranian officials, was subdued.
Yet across the Muslim world — from Jordan and Morocco to Yemen and Somalia — angry crowds waving Palestinian flags rushed out of mosques after midday Friday prayers, chanting for revenge.
“Let Friday be a day of rage to denounce the assassination,” senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq said.
Additional reporting by AP
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS