WASHINGTON — The United States is shifting military resources, including ships, in the Middle East in response to Israel’s strikes on Iran and a possible retaliatory attack by Tehran, two US officials said Friday.
The Navy has directed the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, which is capable of defending against ballistic missiles, to begin sailing from the western Mediterranean Sea toward the eastern Mediterranean and has directed a second destroyer to begin moving forward so it can be available if requested by the White House.
US President Donald Trump was meeting with his National Security Council principals Friday to discuss the situation. The US officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public.
The forces in the region have been taking precautionary measures for days, including having military dependents voluntarily depart regional bases, in anticipation of the strikes and to protect those personnel in case of a large-scale response from Tehran.
Typically around 30,000 troops are based in the Middle East, and about 40,000 troops are in the region now, according to a third US official. That number surged as high as 43,000 last October amid the ongoing tensions between Israel and Iran as well as continuous attacks on commercial and military ships in the Red Sea by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
The Navy has additional assets that it could surge to the Middle East if needed, particularly its aircraft carriers and the warships that sail with them. The USS Carl Vinson is in the Arabian Sea — the only aircraft carrier in the region.
The carrier USS Nimitz is in the Indo-Pacific and could be directed toward the Middle East if needed, and the USS George Washington just left its port in Japan and could be directed to the region if so ordered, one of the officials said.
Then-president Joe Biden initially surged ships to protect Israel following the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas that launched the war in Gaza. It was seen as a deterrent against Hezbollah and Iran at the time.
On October 1, 2024, US Navy destroyers fired about a dozen interceptors in defense of Israel as the country came under attack by more than 200 missiles fired by Iran.
The Israeli strikes followed repeated threats from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who appeared to finally cap a years-long threat to strike Iran’s rogue nuclear program.
Iran, which avowedly seeks Israel’s destruction, has denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. However, it has been enriching uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, has obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities, and some of its officials have increasingly warned that they could pursue the bomb.
Friday’s attacks came after more than a year of soaring tensions as Israel took on Iran’s proxies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.