US sends sub to Middle East in show of force to Tehran

Guided-missile sub USS Florida is in the Red Sea in response to attacks on American positions by Iran-aligned militants.

US submarine movements aren’t usually publicised unless the Pentagon wants to send a message. Picture: US Navy

The US military said on Saturday that it had sent a guided-missile submarine into the Red Sea in a public show of force in response to the recent attacks on American positions by Iran-aligned militants across the Middle East.

The USS Florida, which can carry more than 150 Tomahawk cruise missiles, moved into the region as part of a broader move by the Pentagon to beef-up its presence in the region to deter Iran-backed forces from carrying out more attacks on the US and its allies.

The movements of submarines aren’t often publicised unless the Pentagon wants to send a message.

US officials said they had intelligence that Iran was aiming to carry out more attacks across the region in the near term.

“The USS Florida presents an added measure of flexibility, survivability, readiness, and capability and we welcome this asset to the Centcom region,” said Joe Buccino, a spokesman for Centcom, the US military command that oversees the Middle East and much of Central Asia.

Last month, the US military said it was speeding up the dispatch of a squadron of A-10 planes to the region in response to a series of attacks on US forces in Syria that killed one contractor and injured a dozen other Americans.

The contractor was killed in late March at a small base in northeastern Syria where American personnel primarily carry out counter-terrorism operations targeting small pockets of ISIS militants still living in the area. The US military said the contractor was killed by a suicide drone launched by Iran-backed militants in Syria.

In response, US President Joe Biden ordered air strikes against the suspected attackers in Syria, which the US military said killed eight militants.

“We will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing,” Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the time. “No group will strike our troops with impunity.” Militants later responded with two new drone and rocket attacks targeting US troops in northeastern Syria.

The US has about 900 troops in Syria where they primarily work alongside Kurdish-led fighters trying to ensure that ISIS militants aren’t able to regain a foothold in the area they captured in 2014 and ruled until being routed by American forces and their Syrian allies in 2019.

Since the start of 2021, Iran-backed forces have carried out about 80 attacks against the US forces in the area, according to the US military. The Biden administration has carried out four air strikes in response.

The stepped-up US military presence in the Middle East comes amid a regional political shift. Iran and Saudi Arabia recently ended a seven-year diplomatic freeze and are in the process of restoring relations.

On Thursday, the foreign ministers from both countries met in Beijing, which helped broker the diplomatic thaw, where they agreed to resume flights between their countries.

On Saturday, a Saudi delegation arrived in Tehran to discuss the reopening of its diplomatic missions after a seven-year absence, Riyadh’s foreign ministry said.

Cited by the official Saudi Press Agency, the ministry called the visit part of “implementing the tripartite agreement” reached on March 10 between the two regional powers, brokered by China, to restore ties ruptured in 2016.

The two longtime Middle East rivals have now pledged to work together.

When Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met in Beijing on Thursday they vowed to bring security and stability to the turbulent Gulf region.

Some Arab and Muslim leaders are also looking at restoring diplomatic relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been politically isolated for more than a decade after launching a brutal military crackdown that crushed an effort to force him from power.

The Wall Street Journal