The United States is preparing to send about 9,000 additional sailors and Marines to the Middle East as President Donald Trump said Iran was “ready to fold up” and promised the conflict would be “very quickly ended”.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group and the USS Makin Island Amphibious Group are heading to the region, according to a US official. If both arrive, there could be three American carrier strike groups and two amphibious ready groups deployed at the same time.
The additional force is expected to include roughly 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines, bringing the total number of US personnel in the region to about 20,000, along with hundreds of vessels and aircraft. The forces could arrive by the end of October.
The USS George H.W. Bush and USS George Washington are already in the area, alongside the USS Boxer amphibious readiness group.
Speaking at a Peterbilt Motors facility in Denton, Texas, Mr Trump said Iran “is ready to fold up”. He said he expected the US to win the war “right after the election”, referring to November’s midterm elections, but added: “Maybe before the election.”
“I’m ensuring that Iran will be very quickly ended,” the president said, while predicting that US energy prices, which have risen during the conflict, would be “rapidly, rapidly coming” down.
Mr Trump also suggested that Iran could be connected to an alleged attempted hijacking involving a FlyDubai aircraft bound for Israel. The co-pilot was accused of attacking the captain and trying to crash the plane before passengers subdued him.
Asked whether he had been briefed on possible links between the co-pilot and Iran, Mr Trump said: “I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is yes. But we’re working on it right now.” He said the co-pilot “could’ve been” working for or with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, adding that any Iranian involvement would be met with a severe response.
In Yemen, the Saudi-led coalition accused Iran-backed Houthi rebels of using a drone to strike an electricity distribution station in Medina, home to the Prophet’s Mosque. The Houthis denied involvement.
The coalition said the Taibah station supplied power to the mosque and that one transformer had been taken out of service without affecting the wider electricity network. It said fighting in Yemen had intensified in recent weeks, with air strikes reported against Houthi targets and explosions heard in the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa.
