US aircraft carrier deployment to Gulf ‘unrelated to specific threats’
US aircraft carrier USS
Nimitz was deployed to the Gulf this week, days before the killing of Iran’s
top nuclear scientist, although the US Navy said on Saturday the deployment was
not related to any specific threat.
“There were no specific
threats that triggered the return of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group,”
Commander Rebecca Rebarich, spokeswoman for the US Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth
Fleet, said in an emailed statement after the carrier deployed on Wednesday.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the
Iranian scientist suspected by the West of masterminding a secret nuclear bomb
program, was killed in an ambush near Tehran on Friday, threatening to provoke
a new confrontation between Iran and its foes in the last weeks of Donald
Trump’s presidency.
Rebarich said the
redeployment was related to a US drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“This action ensures we have
sufficient capability available to respond to any threat and to deter any
adversary from acting against our troops during the force reduction,” she said.
