US Navy Deploys Nuclear Submarine to Mideast Over Tensions With Iran

The United States Navy has deployed a guided-missile submarine to the Middle East due to increased tensions with Iran. The nuclear-powered USS Florida submarine already has passed through the Suez Canal, a US Navy spokesman said on Saturday. “It is capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and is deployed to US 5th Fleet to help ensure regional maritime security and stability,” Commander Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet based in Bahrain, said in a statement. “Recent events, including the strikes in Syria and public threats made by Iran against merchant vessels, prompted us to remind regional mariners to remain vigilant,” Hawkins said.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force was preparing a drone attack against Israeli-owned civilian merchant vessels sailing in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, two unnamed Western senior intelligence officials with knowledge of the threats told The New York Times, citing US military and Israeli intelligence agencies. Such attacks are believed to be a retaliation against Israeli airstrikes in Syria that killed two members of the Revolutionary Guards in March.

In addition to dispatching a submarine to the region, the Pentagon last week announced it was extending the tour of the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush in the eastern Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal quoted US officials as saying that they have intelligence that Iran is planning further attacks across the region.