The USS Nimitz carrier strike group is on its way to the Middle East from the South China Sea, a U.S. official told Fox News.
The Nimitz strike group was previously scheduled to replace the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group, which has been deployed for several months, but is now heading to the Middle East ahead of schedule. The two will now be in the Middle East at the same time.
USS Carl Vinson was the only aircraft carrier in the region as of last Friday, U.S. defense officials told Fox News.
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USS Nimitz – commissioned on May 3, 1975 – is the oldest active aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy. This is possibly its final sea voyage, as the Nimitz is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2026. The deployment is significant because the Nimitz was also deployed in 1980 when its helicopters were part of the failed U.S. effort known as Operation Eagle Claw to rescue the American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran. The U.S. has been in a shadow war against Iran ever since.
USS Nimitz departed the South China Sea on Monday morning and was heading west, Reuters reported, citing data from the ship tracking website Marine Traffic. Two sources, including one diplomat, told Reuters the carrier had been scheduled to attend a formal reception in Danang City, central Vietnam, on June 20.
It has since been canceled.
One of the sources said the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi notified him about the reception being called off due to "an emergent operational requirement."
The United States is shifting military resources, including ships, in the Middle East amid Israel's preemptive attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities and leadership and Iran's retaliatory strikes that have been ongoing for four consecutive days.
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American air defense systems and a Navy destroyer helped Israel shoot down ballistic missiles coming in from Iran on Friday, U.S. officials told Fox News.
The U.S. has both ground-based Patriot missile defense systems and Terminal High Altitude Air Defense systems in the Middle East capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.
The U.S. Navy also had the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, which is capable of defending against ballistic missiles, begin sailing from the western Mediterranean Sea toward the eastern Mediterranean, U.S. officials told Fox News. They said the Navy also had directed another destroyer to move forward so it could be available if requested by the White House.
One of the officials cited the Nimitz, which was in the Indo-Pacific at the time, as well as USS George Washington, which had just left its port in Japan, as assets the Navy could possibly surge to the Middle East if so ordered.
American fighter jets were also patrolling the sky in the Middle East to protect personnel and installations, and air bases in the region are taking additional security precautions, the officials said.
Typically, around 30,000 troops are based in the Middle East, and about 40,000 troops are in the region now, one of the U.S. officials told The Associated Press. That number surged as high as 43,000 last October amid the ongoing tensions between Israel and Iran as well as continuous attacks on commercial and military ships in the Red Sea by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
Former President Joe Biden initially surged ships to protect Israel, a close U.S. ally, following the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Iran-backed Hamas terrorists. It was seen at the time as a deterrent against Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Iran.
On Oct. 1, 2024, U.S. Navy destroyers fired about a dozen interceptors in defense of Israel as the country came under attack by more than 200 missiles fired by Iran.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
