World's Largest Aircraft Carrier USS Gerald R. Ford To Return Home From Eastern Mediterranean Sea

In the “coming days,” two American officials tell ABC News, the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group will be leaving the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where it was dispatched shortly after the Israel-Hamas war began in October. The Ford, the largest and newest aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy, was almost finished with its first operational deployment when, on October 7, the day after Hamas terrorists carried out an extraordinary surprise attack on Israel, it was rerouted to the eastern Mediterranean.

The carrier and the other five surface warships were dispatched by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to prevent Hezbollah in Iran and Lebanon from escalating the conflict on a regional scale. With tensions in the area still high, Austin decided to extend the carrier’s deployment a third time in December in order to continue playing that deterrent role.

The carrier and the other surface vessels that comprise the strike group will make their way to the carrier’s home port of Norfolk in Virginia as originally planned in the “coming days,” according to senior and official U.S. officials who spoke with ABC News. This will allow the carrier to get ready for upcoming deployments.

US Navy — Image Credits: Screengrab from NATO Video on YouTube

The senior U.S. official emphasized that the carrier’s return will follow that timetable and that the US will continue to possess a lot of military flexibility and capability in the area, including the ability to send more cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. When approached for comment, a Defense Department spokeswoman stated that there was nothing to report today. To rejoin the USS Mesa Verde, the amphibious assault vessels Bataan as well as Carter Hall travelled from the Red Sea to the eastern Mediterranean last week.

With this transfer, the three ships that had originally embarked from North Carolina together in July were reunited, along with the 2,200 U.S. Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (abbreviated the MEU) that were stationed aboard them. As part of an attempt to dissuade Hezbollah and Iran, other nations also dispatched battleships to the eastern Mediterranean following Hamas’ October 7 raid, establishing the greatest naval presence in that area in decades. In order to prevent Iran from intensifying the conflict between Israel and Hamas, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a second carrier strike group in the U.S. Navy, was diverted from its original mission to the Persian Gulf.

The Eisenhower is still in the Middle East, where it is presently stationed in the Gulf of Aden to the east of Yemen. Houthi militants have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea region with ballistic missiles and drones in recent weeks, allegedly as a show of backing for Hamas. This has increased tensions in the area. Numerous American Navy destroyers from the Ford, as well as Eisenhower strike divisions, have been stationed in the Red Sea, where they have intercepted missiles and drones belonging to the Houthi group that was headed toward Israel.

After American warships reacted to a distress call from a merchant vessel, tensions increased on Sunday as U.S. Navy helicopters opened fire and sank three small boats transporting Houthi militants in the Red Sea, killing the crew members, per military officials. After Houthi militants on three swift small boats opened fire on a commercial vessel, helicopters from Eisenhower and the destroyer Gravely retaliated in self-defence.

U.S. Central Command released a statement stating that all the militants on three of the boats were killed and that the fourth boat managed to escape.

Reference: weisradio

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