USS Bataan and USNS Medgar Evers conduct a replenishment in the Mediterranean Sea on Aug. 4, 2023. Along with the dock landing ship USS Carter Hall, Bataan is in the eastern Mediterranean to reintegrate the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, the Navy said Thursday. (Alisha Gleason/U.S. Navy)
NAPLES, Italy — A U.S. amphibious ready group sent to counter Iranian interference with commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf recently left the Middle East after nearly five months in the region.
The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan and the dock landing ship USS Carter Hall, along with embarked elements of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Thursday, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa said in a statement the same day.
There they will join the amphibious transport dock ship USS Mesa Verde, reintegrating the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group, the Navy said.
The group, which includes more than 3,000 sailors and Marines, arrived in the Middle East on Aug. 6. The Pentagon’s deployment of additional forces to the region came after Iran tried to seize two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman in early July.
The attempts, during which Iranian naval forces fired on one of the ships, were the latest in a string of actions by Tehran to harass oil tankers. At the time, the Navy said Iran had harassed, attacked or seized 20 commercial ships since 2021.
In other U.S. Navy activity in the Mediterranean, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford arrived Tuesday for another port call at U.S. Naval Support Activity Souda Bay on the Greek island of Crete, according to a post on the base’s official Facebook page.
Ford, which left its homeport in Norfolk, Va., on May 2, has been on duty in the region for nearly eight months. It last visited the base earlier this month.
The carrier’s deployment was extended for a third time earlier this month, part of U.S. efforts to keep the Israel-Hamas war from broadening.
The cruiser USS Normandy, part of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, made its second port call this month in Piraeus, Greece, also on Tuesday. The ship last visited the port Dec. 3, the Navy said in a statement the same day.
