US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will send a second aircraft carrier to accompany the USS Harry S. Truman in the Middle East region, according to reports by the Associated Press and Politico, citing US officials.
The second carrier in question will reportedly be the USS Carl Vinson, which had been based in the Pacific Ocean, the report said.
The Associated Press cited the official saying the defense secretary ordered the USS Harry S. Truman to be in the Middle East for at least one more month, as it was initially supposed to return to Virginia at the end of this month. The report also said the Vinson was expected to arrive in the region next month.
Hegseth's decision comes as the US's strikes on the Houthi terrorist organization in the region have been increasing. A few hours after the Press report, the Houthis fired a ballistic missile toward Israel but was intercepted by the IAF before it crossed into Israeli territory.
The ballistic missile caused red alert sirens to sound all across Israel, from Jerusalem to the surrounding suburbs of Tel Aviv.
The Vinson moving to accompany the USS Truman would be the second time that two carrier ships would be stationed in the Middle East in the past half-year, the report notes. Before moving toward the Middle East, it was conducting exercises with South Korean and Japanese forces, according to the report.
Statements directly against the Houthis, Iran
Hegseth said earlier this week, "The minute the Houthis say, 'We'll stop shooting at your ships [and] we'll stop shooting at your drones,' this campaign will end, but until then, it will be unrelenting," and added that the airstrikes are to get the Islamic Republic of Iran's attention, according to a Monday update by The US Department of Defense.
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Iran must immediately stop sending military supplies to the Houthis and let the Yemeni group "fight it out themselves."
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei responded two days later that Tehran has no proxies in the region and that the groups it backs act independently.
Reuters contributed to this report.