More than 3,000 US military personnel have arrived in the Red Sea on board two warships, part of a beefed-up response from the United States after alleged seizures of several civilian ships by Iran, the US Navy said.
The US sailors and marines entered the Red Sea on Sunday after transiting through the Suez Canal in a preannounced deployment, the US Fifth Fleet said in a statement on Monday.
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 Washington 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.
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 added.
The deployment adds to efforts “to deter destabilising activity and de-escalate regional tensions caused by Iran’s harassment and seizures of merchant vessels,” Fifth Fleet spokesperson Commander Tim Hawkins told the AFP news agency.
USS Bataan is an amphibious assault ship that can carry fixed-wing and rotary aircraft as well as landing craft. The USS Carter Hall, a dock landing ship, transports Marines and their gear and lands them ashore.
Source: Aljazeera.com
