An additional small group of U.S. troops is deploying to the Middle East as fighting in the region intensifies, the Pentagon said Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. (U.S. Army photo)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is sending an additional small group of troops to the Middle East, the Pentagon said Monday.
“In light of increased tension in the Middle East, and out of abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional U.S. military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s top spokesman.
Citing operation security reasons, Ryder did not say how many troops will deploy, where they will be located or what they will be doing.
The announcement follows a recent increase of attacks between Israel and Hezbollah as fighting in the Middle East continues to intensify.
Hezbollah officials have said Israel crossed a “red line” with explosive attacks on its communications devices and vowed to keep up the missile strikes that the militant group has launched since fellow Iranian-backed group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, setting off the war in Gaza.
Israel has also launched strikes, including one Monday that killed more than 270 Lebanese in the deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. The Israeli military warned residents in southern and eastern Lebanon to evacuate their homes ahead of a widening air campaign against Hezbollah, The Associated Press reported.
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli air strike in the Lebanese village of Tayr Harfa, near the Lebanon-Israel border, on Sept. 23, 2024. The Israeli military told people in Lebanon to move away from Hezbollah targets and vowed to carry out more “extensive and precise” strikes against the Iran-backed group. (Kawnat Haju, AFP via Getty Images/TNS)
Despite the Pentagon announcement Monday, defense officials have said the U.S. has a substantial force in the region.
“We’re confident in the ability [of what] we have there right now to protect our forces and should we need to come to the defense of Israel as well,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said last week.
The U.S. has expanded its forces in the region in the last several months to help defend Israel, as well as protect American and allied personnel and assets.
The Navy announced Friday that the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and a force of 6,500 troops will deploy this week on a mission that is expected to take the warship’s strike group into the Middle East.
U.S. sailors and allied nations have fought almost daily for months to down drones and missiles launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen as tensions in the Middle East have raged on for nearly a year.
In the past year, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has twice ordered two carriers to the region, as well as bolstering U.S. forces with an amphibious ready group and a nuclear-powered submarine.
Austin in August ordered the extension of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as well as directed the USS Abraham Lincoln to the Red Sea. The aircraft carriers’ deployment in the region overlapped by about three weeks before the Roosevelt was ordered to return home. The Lincoln and its strike group are still there.
Ryder confirmed on Sept. 10 that the submarine USS Georgia arrived in the Middle East more than a month after it was ordered to the region.
Deployments in August brought the U.S. force in the Middle East to about 40,000 troops, according to a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The number spiked several weeks ago to nearly 50,000, according to the AP.
