A
second US aircraft carrier has arrived in the Gulf region, the Pentagon
said , calling the move “routine” and denying any link
to mounting tensions with Iran. Backed by a cruiser, destroyer and
with almost 80 planes and helicopters on board, the USS Carl Vinson
carrier strike group “arrived in the US 5th Fleet area of responsibility
(AOR)” on January 9,” a Fifth Fleet statement said.
That area covers the Gulf, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Oman and parts
of the Indian Ocean.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the Carl
Vinson was “not in the Gulf” and had not gone through
the Strait of Hormuz — a key oil route which Iran has threatened
to close as tensions with the West flare.
The Carl Vinson was due to relieve another aircraft carrier, the USS
John Stennis, which is in the region, Kirby said.
“Her deployment in that area is routine, long-planned —
there’s nothing unusual about that,” Kirby explained.
“The numbers of carrier strike groups attached to the Centcom
AOR change all the time and it’s been consistently that way,”
he said.
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