The USS Florida is able to carrying as much as 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and is deployed to US fifth Fleet to assist guarantee regional maritime safety.
(Reuters Archive)
The US Navy has deployed a guided-missile submarine able to carrying as much as 154 Tomahawk missiles to the Middle East, a spokesman mentioned.
Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the fifth Fleet primarily based within the Gulf nation of Bahrain, mentioned on Saturday the nuclear-powered submarine, primarily based out of Kings Bay, Georgia, handed by way of the Suez Canal on Friday.
He declined to touch upon the USS Florida’s mission or what had prompted the deployment.
“It is capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and is deployed to US 5th Fleet to help ensure regional maritime security and stability,” Hawkins mentioned.
The fifth Fleet patrols the essential Strait of Hormuz, the slender mouth of the Persian Gulf by way of which 20 % of all oil transits. Its area contains the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off Yemen and the Red Sea stretching as much as the Suez Canal, the Egyptian waterway linking the Mideast to the Mediterranean Sea.
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Tense encounters
The deployment seemed to be a present of pressure towards Iran following latest tensions.
The US, the UK and Israel have accused Iran of concentrating on oil tankers and business ships in recent times, allegations denied by Tehran.
The US Navy has additionally reported a collection of tense encounters at sea with Iranian forces that it mentioned have been being recklessly aggressive.
Last month, the US launched airstrikes towards Iran-backed forces in Syria after a rocket assault killed a US contractor and wounded seven different Americans in that nation’s northeast.
Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from ships or submarines can hit targets as much as 2,500 kilometres (1,500 miles away). They have been famously employed in the course of the opening hours of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and in response to a Syrian chemical weapons assault in 2018.
US-Iranian tensions have soared since then-President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 settlement with world powers that offered sanctions reduction in return for Iran curbing its nuclear actions and inserting them beneath enhanced surveillance.
The Biden administration’s efforts to revive the settlement hit a wall final yr. The tensions have worsened as Iran has equipped assault drones to Russian forces in Ukraine and as Israel and Iran have escalated their yearslong shadow struggle within the Middle East.
In addition to drawing nearer to Moscow, Tehran has sought improved relations with China, which brokered an settlement final month to revive diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
READ MORE: Iran accuses US of ‘imposing new situations’ in nuclear deal talks
Source: AP
Source: www.trtworld.com
