In a show of strength, the US military overflew the Middle East with two nuclear-capable B-52 long-range bombers as tensions between Washington and Tehran remain high in the area.
On Sunday, the bombers flew training missions over the eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Red Sea with Kuwaiti and Saudi jets before taking off from the Royal Air Force base at Fairford in England.
Threats against the US and our allies will not go unanswered, according to Lt Gen Alexus Grynkewich, the highest US air force officer in the Middle East.
Missions like this demonstrate our capacity to work together to fend off and, if necessary, vanquish our enemies.
It happens at a time when US and Iranian negotiators are working to salvage the 2015 nuclear agreement. But following Washington’s declaration that Iran’s most recent negotiating position was “not productive,” tensions between the two nations have risen to a crisis point.
Although Iran was not mentioned by the US Central Command in its statement, Washington frequently sent B-52 bombers to the area as tensions between the US and Iran lingered. Such a flyover hadn’t occurred since June.
The decision by former US president Donald Trump to pull out of the historic nuclear agreement between Iran and six other powers caused a number of rising events in the area.
The Iranian military last week intercepted two American maritime drones in the Red Sea as diplomats haggled over the possibility of the nuclear agreement being revived.
Only a few days prior, the nation’s Revolutionary Guard militia released another sea drone while an American cruiser followed it.
In order to monitor threats in the vital waterways, which have recently experienced a number of maritime strikes, the US navy has begun using ultra-endurance aerial surveillance drones.
After recent clashes in the area between US forces and militias with Iranian support, tensions are still high.
Last month, Washington conducted airstrikes in eastern Syria that were directed at sites utilised by militias supported by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, sparking a retaliation from militants with Iranian support.
In Vienna, US and Iranian negotiators are working to resurrect the 2015 nuclear agreement, which placed strict restrictions on Iran’s atomic programme in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.
The US State Department last week referred to Iran’s most recent negotiating posture as “not productive.”
Iran is currently enriching uranium to a purity of 60%, which is just a small technical step away from 90%, a level it had never achieved previously.
Despite the fact that Iran has long insisted that its programme is non-military, non-profileration experts warn that Tehran has enough 60%-enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one nuclear weapon.