US to send thousands of more troops to Middle East amid rising tensions

The caller deployment volition bring the full fig of US forces successful the portion to astir 43,000. According to Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh, the accrued beingness volition see aggregate squadrons of combatant jets and onslaught aircraft. “This includes a tiny fig of further troops to augment our beingness arsenic well,” Singh stated during a briefing, according to a study by Associated Press.

The determination follows caller airstrikes successful Lebanon and the assassination of Hezbollah person Hassan Nasrallah, which person importantly heightened the struggle betwixt Israel and Hezbollah.

The deployment volition diagnostic squadrons of F-15E, F-16, and F-22 combatant jets, arsenic good arsenic A-10 onslaught aircraft, on with the indispensable enactment personnel. Initially, the program was to rotate the caller squadrons with the ones already stationed successful the region, but present some groups volition stay successful place, efficaciously doubling the US airpower available.

On Sunday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed the impermanent hold of the USS Abraham Lincoln bearer onslaught radical successful the Middle East. “The hold is expected to past astir a month,” a US authoritative disclosed. Another carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, is besides en way and volition bolster the US naval beingness successful the Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, astatine the White House, President Joe Biden responded to reports of a imaginable Israeli crushed incursion into Lebanon, saying, “I’m much alert than you mightiness know…We should person a cease-fire now”, arsenic reported by AP.

Biden emphasised his tendency for an contiguous halt to hostilities aft astir a twelvemonth of warring betwixt Israel and Hezbollah.

(with inputs from AP)