Middle East
An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter receives cargo as the fast combat support ship USNS Arctic sails alongside the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during a replenishment-at-sea on July 1, 2019. Photo: Spc. Tristan Kyle Labuguen | US Navy
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford revealed that Washington is considering a military alliance to secure vital shipping lanes near Iran and Yemen amid growing security concerns for commercial companies.
“We’re engaging now with a number of countries to see if we can put together a coalition that would ensure freedom of navigation both in the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab,” Dunford told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
His comments followed a meeting with acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Dunford did not reveal what countries could be in the proposed naval coalition.
“And so I think probably over the next couple of weeks we’ll identify which nations have the political will to support that initiative and then we’ll work directly with the militaries to identify the specific capabilities that’ll support that," he added.
The US Navy Fifth Fleet's responsibilities include the waters in the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman, and Arabian Sea. US Central Command has forces from various military branches stationed at bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
"This will be scalable. So, with a small number of contributors we can have a small mission and we'll expand that as the number of nations that are willing to participate identify themselves," he said without revealing whether Arab or Western states would be part of the alliance.
Iran did not immediately comment about the proposed naval alliance near their territorial waters. President Hassan Rouhani told his cabinet during a meeting on Wednesday morning that "the enemy is seeking to create insecurity in the region," according to Tasnim, a news agency close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
He went on to call Britain’s actions in the Strait of Gibraltar "haphazard," claiming that the United Kingdom is initiating insecurity in shipping lanes "throughout the world."
The alliance will primarily provide surveillance and intelligence and US warships would not escort other nations' commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, Defense One's Senior National Security Correspondent Katie Bo Williams reported on Tuesday.
“Escorting in the normal course of events would be done by countries who have the same flag, so a ship that is flagged from a particular country would be escorted by that country,” she quoted Dunford as saying. “The United States is uniquely capable of providing is some of the command and control, some of the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; but the expectation is the actual [security] patrolling and escorts would be done by others.”
A Pentagon plan in May proposed sending 10,000 more troops to the Middle East amid rising threats with Iran. US President Donald Trump later authorized the deployment of 1,500 forces “with their primary responsibilities and activities being defensive in nature.”
Iran has threatened to seize British oil tankers in retaliation for Royal Marines and the Government of Gibraltar detaining a Panama-flagged supertanker believed to be carrying 2 million barrels of Iranian oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions.
Security near the Strait of Hormuz has been boosted following mysterious attacks on commercial oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman in May and June. Washington has blamed Iranian-linked forces for the incidents.
The IRGC shot down a US surveillance drone near Iran's southern shores on June 20. The United States maintains the craft was over international waters, while Iran says the drone was over Iranian waters.
Tensions have escalated in the Middle East as Iran appears poised to break the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, an accord that the Trump administration pulled out of last year.
Iran’s nuclear deal, reached in 2015 by China, Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, saw Tehran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of crippling sanctions.
Western powers feared Iran’s atomic program could allow it to build nuclear weapons, although Iran long has insisted its program was for peaceful purposes. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board will convene an emergency session on Wednesday to discuss Iran surpassing 300 kilograms of uranium enriched past 3.67-percent purity.
The Yemeni Crisis has raged since 2015 pitting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels (Ansar Allah) against the Saudi-backed government that has been backed by the United States and France. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict, according to data in April from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) despite UN peace process efforts.
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