More than 3,000 US troops arrive in Red Sea area amid Iran tensions

By AFP 7 August 2023, 2:48 pm

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This handout photo from the U.S. Navy, shows the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan in the Atlantic Ocean on July 20, 2023. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Danilo Reynoso/U.S. Navy, via AP)

More than 3,000 United States military personnel have arrived in the Red Sea aboard two warships, part of a beefed-up response from Washington after tanker seizures by Iran, the US Navy says.

The deployment adds to a growing US military buildup in tense Gulf waterways vital to the global oil trade and led Tehran on Monday to accuse the US of inflaming regional instability.

The US military says Iran has either seized or attempted to take control of nearly 20 internationally flagged ships in the region over the past two years.

The US sailors and Marines entered the Red Sea yesterday after transiting through the Suez Canal in a pre-announced deployment, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet says in a statement.

They arrived on board the USS Bataan and USS Carter Hall warships, providing “greater flexibility and maritime capability” to the Fifth Fleet, the statement from the Bahrain-based command adds.

The deployment adds to efforts “to deter destabilizing activity and de-escalate regional tensions caused by Iran’s harassment and seizures of merchant vessels,” Fifth Fleet spokesman Commander Tim Hawkins tells AFP.