The U.S. Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier will deploy next week to Europe, as a growing conflict between Iran and Israel wages on.
The carrier Gerald Ford is expected to depart Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, next week and travel to the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations — a component of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa that encompasses the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas — according to a defense official.
The carrier is embarking as part of a regularly scheduled deployment, and the move is not in response to rising tensions in the Middle East, according to the official.
The Ford will deploy with its strike group, which includes Carrier Air Wing 8 and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers Mitscher, Mahan and Bainbridge, the official said.
The destroyer Winston S. Churchill will also deploy as part of the strike group, according to a Navy release. The destroyer Forrest Sherman deployed from Naval Station Norfolk last month, according to the same release.
The carrier Nimitz recently left the South China Sea and headed toward the Middle East to replace the Carl Vinson Strike Group for a regularly scheduled deployment, though the carrier skipped a port call in Vietnam to expedite the voyage in light of the burgeoning conflict between Israel and Iran.
Israel launched airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, destroying sites, and killing nuclear scientists and senior military leaders, on June 13.
Iran has since retaliated with missile strikes, hitting an Israeli hospital Thursday, while the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that U.S. intervention would result in “irreparable damage” to the U.S.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will decide within two weeks whether the U.S. military will strike Iran, a choice that reportedly hinges on Tehran’s willingness to engage in negotiations over its nuclear program.
Iran’s main nuclear facility, Fordo, is buried deep within the mountains 60 miles southwest of Tehran and can likely only be reached by bunker-buster bombs that the United States is in sole possession of.
Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.
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