US deploys nuclear-powered missile submarine in Middle East amid Iran tension
- USS Florida – a nuclear-powered vessel capable of carrying 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles – began transiting the Suez Canal on Friday
- It is being deployed in support of the US Fifth Fleet to ‘ensure regional maritime security and stability’, the US Navy said on Saturday
The US said it deployed a cruise-missile submarine in the Middle East, boosting its naval fleet in the region amid rising tensions with Iran.
The USS Florida – a nuclear-powered vessel capable of carrying as many as 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles – began transiting the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean Sea on Friday, according to the US Naval Forces Central Command, which is based in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.
The submarine is being deployed in support of the US Fifth Fleet, which is also based in Bahrain, to “ensure regional maritime security and stability”, it said in a statement on Saturday.
A Bahrain-based spokesperson for the US Navy declined to provide further details on the mission or specify whether the submarine was headed to the Persian Gulf as it would contravene operational security protocols.
Last month, the US military carried out airstrikes against Iran-backed groups in Syria. It came after an American contractor was killed in what was said to be an attack by an Iranian-made drone on a US military facility in northeast Syria.