US Navy leaves unstable Middle East without aircraft carriers

• The US Navy’s only aircraft carrier in the Middle East left the region this weekend.
• The USS Abraham Lincoln spent months operating there, joining the fight against the Houthis.
• The United States now finds itself without a carrier in a volatile Middle East for the first time in a long time.

The US Navy once again finds itself without an aircraft carrier in the Middle East; This is the second time in the past year that it has not had this capacity despite ongoing fighting in the region.

A US official confirmed to Business Insider on Tuesday that the Navy’s only aircraft carrier in the Middle East, the USS Abraham Lincoln, left the region over the weekend after several months of operations there.

The Lincoln has since entered the U.S. 7th Fleet area of ​​responsibility, a large area that includes much of the Indo-Pacific region. It is accompanied by three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers: the USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., the USS Michael Murphy and the USS Spruance.

The official said there are currently no carriers in the Middle East. The last time the United States ran out of carriers in the region was in June, before the arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt to replace the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which spent months fighting the Houthi rebels supported by Iran.

The Lincoln Carrier Strike Group entered the Middle East in August and overlapped the TR for several weeks before the latter left the region in September. Since then, Lincoln has participated in ongoing Navy operations against the Houthis, with its attached F-35Cs conducting their first combat operations.

USNI News first reported the Lincoln’s departure from the Middle East on Monday.

It is unclear when the Navy might send a new aircraft carrier to the region. The U.S. BI official said the USS Harry S. Truman Strike Group, which would be deployed there, operates in the Atlantic near the Portuguese Azores Islands.

The United States has deployed strike groups – consisting of an aircraft carrier, its air wing and other warships – to and from the Middle East to help defend military and commercial shipping against the Houthis, who have used missiles and drones to attack merchant shipping lanes. in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden over the past year.

The Pentagon said its naval presence, including carrier strike groups, was meant to be a show of support for Israel and a deterrent against Iran and its regional proxies.

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Earlier this month, the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered additional destroyers and aircraft to be deployed to the Middle East, including fighter jets and B-52 bombers, and that Forces would arrive in the coming months during the Lincoln strike. group ready to leave the region.

U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said at the time that Austin had made force posture changes “consistent with our commitments to protecting citizens and American forces in the Middle East, the defense of Israel, and de-escalation through deterrence and diplomacy.

Although there are no aircraft carriers in the region, the Navy still has four destroyers operating in the Middle East and several warships in the Eastern Mediterranean, the U.S. official said. These assets are positioned not far from the wars waged by Israel against Hamas and Hezbollah, in Gaza and Lebanon respectively.