As tensions between the US and Iran continue to rise, a US Navy carrier strike group and amphibious ready group exercised together in the Arabian Sea over the weekend in a somewhat rare training event.
Located just outside the Persian Gulf, the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group with embarked 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit practiced rapidly aggregating and establishing a joint command and control environment, as well as a range of air and surface warfare skills.
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According to the US Navy, this joint exercise comes amid ‘credible threat indicators’ from Iran and ‘highlights the ability of the US Navy to quickly mobilize assets and aggregate different platforms with a variety of operational capabilities.
The exercise included both relevant skills if the two groups were to respond to a crisis in the Persian Gulf, as well as skills that are not typically rehearsed because of the carrier and surface combatant community and the amphibious warship community having separate training cycles and focusing on different warfare objectives in training.
The exercises took place on May 17 and 18. Earlier in the month, the Lincoln CSG was on a routine deployment and operating in the Mediterranean Sea, and the Kearsarge ARG and 22nd MEU were also on a routine deployment in US 5th Fleet, with USS Arlington operating in the Mediterranean as has become routine during ARG/MEU deployments.
A May 5 statement from National Security Advisor John Bolton cited several troubling and escalatory indications and warnings from Iran as reason for a naval buildup. The Lincoln CSG was rushed through the Suez Canal and into 5th Fleet waters, and an Air Force bomber task force was deployed to the US Central Command area of operations.
In addition, no May 10 the Defense Department announced a further buildup of forces, as Arlington was ordered back to 5th Fleet and a Patriot air defense battery was sent to the region.
Tensions appeared to calm down, after The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump was not interested in a fight with Iran and wanted to find a diplomatic solution. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week he did not seek a war with the United States, Reuters reported.
Nonetheless, during the weekend, just after the Lincoln CSG and Kearsarge ARG drills ended, a rocket hit the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, less than a mile from the US embassy there.
According to the Associated Press, Iraqi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul told the military was investigating but that the rocket was believed to have been fired from east Baghdad, home to Iran-backed Shiite militias.
