US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday ordered additional combat aircraft and missile-shooting warships to the Middle East in response to threats from Iran and its proxies in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Yemen to attack Israel in the coming days to avenge the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the Pentagon said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that Mr Haniyeh was killed in Tehran by a short-range projectile with a warhead of about 7kg, and vowed severe revenge.
Wednesday’s assassination has drawn fears of direct conflict between Tehran and its arch-enemy Israel in a region shaken by Israel’s war in Gaza and a worsening conflict in Lebanon.
Revenge for the killing of the Hamas leader will be “severe and at an appropriate time, place, and manner,” the Guards’ statement added, blaming the “terrorist Zionist regime” of Israel for his death.
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Israeli officials have not claimed responsibility.
The US military has said it will send an additional squadron of Air Force F-22 fighter jets, an unspecified number of additional navy cruisers and destroyers capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, and, if needed, more land-based ballistic-missile defence systems to the Middle East.
To maintain the presence of an aircraft carrier and its accompanying warships in the region, Mr Austin also directed the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, now in the eastern Pacific, to relieve the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the next couple of weeks when it is scheduled to return home.
Some ships already in the western Mediterranean Sea will move east, closer to the coast of Israel to provide more security, a senior Pentagon official said.
“Secretary Austin has ordered adjustments to US military posture designed to improve US force protection, to increase support for the defence of Israel and to ensure the United States is prepared to respond to various contingencies,” Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement. The statement did not specify when the additional warplanes and combatant vessels would arrive, but officials said it would be a matter of days for the additional aircraft and somewhat longer for the naval reinforcements.
Officials said they were seeking to calibrate the US response to send enough of the right types of aircraft and ships as quickly as possible to help defend Israel without appearing to escalate the conflict.
Ms Singh, in a news conference earlier on Friday, had raised the possibility that the United States could also send additional troops to operate whatever additional capabilities the Pentagon sends to the region. The support, she said, would be defensive in nature.
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She said that during a telephone call that Mr Austin held with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, on Friday morning, Mr Austin “committed” that the United States would help Israel in its defence. “We will be bolstering our force protection in the region,” she said.
The Pentagon is also bracing for the possibility that Iran-backed groups, including the Houthis in Yemen and Hizbullah in Lebanon, might target US troops in the region as part of the expected Iranian retaliation for the killing of Mr Haniyeh this week.
– Reuters, The New York Times
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