Pentagon deploys thousands more Marines, another aircraft carrier to Mideast
Some 2,200 Marines of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit and sailors aboard the USS Makin Island follow the USS Theodore Roosevelt in cycling into the Arabian Sea as the US blockade of Iran shows no sign of ending.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is sending several thousand more US Marines and Navy sailors as part of the Amphibious Ready Group led by the assault ship USS Makin Island to the Middle East alongside an additional aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a US official confirmed to Al-Monitor on Thursday.
The Makin left port at Naval Base San Diego on Monday carrying the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, just one day after the Roosevelt was dispatched to cross the Pacific. The Roosevelt will likely need at least two to three weeks to reach the Arabian Sea, where it is expected to relieve at least one of the two other US Navy aircraft carriers currently operating there.
The Japan-based USS George Washington and the USS George H.W. Bush are already in Middle Eastern waters, backed by roughly 18 other surface warships that have been enforcing a blockade of Iran's southern coast, part of the Trump administration's open-ended economic pressure campaign against Tehran.
The three carriers may briefly overlap and orders for current deployments could be extended at any time. The Pentagon has extended several deployment cycles amid the war with Iran, most notably the USS Abraham Lincoln, which spent more than 300 days at sea. There were previously three US carriers in the region for roughly a week in late April before the one of them departed.
