The US stated it deployed a cruise-missile submarine within the Center East, boosting its naval fleet within the area amid rising tensions with Iran.
The USS Florida — a nuclear-powered vessel able to carrying as many as 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles — started transiting the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean Sea on Friday, in keeping with the US Naval Forces Central Command, which is predicated in Bahrain within the Persian Gulf.
The submarine is being deployed in help of the US Fifth Fleet, which can also be primarily based in Bahrain, to “guarantee regional maritime safety and stability,” it stated in an announcement on Saturday.
A Bahrain-based spokesperson for the US Navy declined to offer additional particulars on the mission or specify whether or not the submarine was headed to the Persian Gulf as it might contravene operational safety protocols.
Final month, the US navy carried out airstrikes towards Iran-backed teams in Syria. It got here after an American contractor was killed in what was stated to be an assault by an Iranian-made drone on a US navy facility in northeast Syria.
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