DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Navy has deployed a guided-missile submarine able to carrying as much as 154 Tomahawk missiles to the Middle East, a spokesman mentioned Saturday, in what seemed to be a present of power towards Iran following latest tensions.

The Navy hardly ever acknowledges the situation or deployment of submarines. Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a spokesman for the fifth Fleet primarily based within the Gulf nation of Bahrain, declined to touch upon the submarine’s mission or what had prompted the deployment.

He mentioned the nuclear-powered submarine, primarily based out of Kings Bay, Georgia, handed by means of the Suez Canal on Friday. “It is capable of carrying up to 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles and is deployed to U.S. 5th Fleet to help ensure regional maritime security and stability,” Hawkins mentioned.

The fifth Fleet patrols the essential Strait of Hormuz, the slim mouth of the Persian Gulf by means of which 20% of all oil transits. Its area contains the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off Yemen and the Red Sea stretching as much as the Suez Canal, the Egyptian waterway linking the Mideast to the Mediterranean Sea.

The U.S., the U.Okay. and Israel have accused Iran of focusing on oil tankers and industrial ships in recent times, allegations denied by Tehran. The U.S. Navy has additionally reported a collection of tense encounters at sea with Iranian forces that it mentioned had been being recklessly aggressive.

Last month, the U.S. launched airstrikes in opposition to Iran-backed forces in Syria after a rocket assault killed a U.S. contractor and wounded seven different Americans in that nation’s northeast.

Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from ships or submarines can hit targets as much as 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles away). They had been famously employed in the course of the opening hours of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and in response to a Syrian chemical weapons assault in 2018.

U.S.-Iranian tensions have soared since then-President Donald Trump withdrew from a 2015 settlement with world powers that offered sanctions aid in return for Iran curbing its nuclear actions and inserting them underneath enhanced surveillance.

The Biden administration’s efforts to revive the settlement hit a wall final yr. The tensions have worsened as Iran has provided assault drones to Russian forces in Ukraine and as Israel and Iran have escalated their yearslong shadow warfare within the Middle East.

In addition to drawing nearer to Moscow, Tehran has sought improved relations with China, which brokered an settlement final month to revive diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

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