Satellite images show a rapid increase of US military planes in bases across Europe and the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
Citing flight tracking data and satellite imagery, the publication said, “the US military has rapidly increased its presence near Iran, shifting more than 150 aircraft to bases in Europe and the Middle East since a second round of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran ended without a breakthrough on February 17.”
According to the report, the current presence of US military forces in the region “is among the largest” since before the Iraq war, more than two decades ago.
US President Donald Trump has threatened on several occasions to attack Iran unless a deal on its nuclear program is reached. Iranian officials have said a deal is possible but would take time.
The report added that the deployment this time around surpasses the military buildup seen before the US struck Iran in June last year, according to experts who reviewed the deployment.
“They said the assets being assembled are indicative of a multiday campaign without a ground invasion,” the Washington Post reported.
“The massive level of force amassed means the US military can execute on whatever Trump decides – anything from a sustained, highly kinetic campaign to more targeted, limited strikes,” the Washington Post quoted Dana Stroul, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, as saying.
However, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Mark Cancian said if “the administration is planning for an extended, weeks-long air campaign, even more military assets will be needed.”
Washington currently has more than a dozen warships in the Middle East: one aircraft carrier – the USS Abraham Lincoln – nine destroyers and three littoral combat ships.
It is rare for there to be two US aircraft carriers – which carry dozens of warplanes and are crewed by thousands of sailors – in the Middle East.
The United States had two of the massive warships in the region in June last year when it bombed three Iranian nuclear sites during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran.
The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, reached the US naval base of Souda Bay on Crete on Tuesday, en route to joining a massive military build-up in the Middle East.
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