US warns Iran with B-52 bomber flight, submarine deployment
WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – A pair of US B-52 bombers completed a non-stop, round-trip flight from the US to the Persian Gulf in a show of force intended to warn Iran against any strike on US targets, as the first anniversary approaches of the Jan. 3, 2020, assassination of Gen. Qassim Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In addition, a US nuclear-powered submarine, capable of carrying 154 cruise Tomahawk missiles, entered the Persian Gulf in the week before Christmas.
“US Air Force B-52H ‘Stratofortress’ aircrews from the Minot Air Force Base” in North Dakota “made a deliberate appearance in the Middle East today to underscore the US military’s commitment to regional security and demonstrate a unique ability to rapidly deploy overwhelming combat power on short notice,” CENTCOM said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
“We do not seek conflict, but no one should underestimate our ability to defend our forces or to act decisively in response to any attack,” Gen. Frank McKenzie, Commander of CENTCOM, affirmed.
The flight marked the third such warning in the last 45 days, as CENTCOM’s statement noted.
Read More: US show of force against Iran; second in three weeks
The military deployments follow three recent incidents. On Nov. 17, rockets were launched by Iranian-backed militias at the US embassy in Baghdad, breaking a ceasefire they had declared on Oct. 11, following dramatic US threats to retaliate by closing its embassy in Baghdad; moving the diplomatic staff to Erbil; and launching a massive strike against the militias.
A little-known militia, Ashab al-Kahf, claimed credit for that assault. It first emerged two months earlier, in August 2019—but, almost certainly, Ashab al-Kahf is a cover name for other Iranian-backed militias seeking to attack US targets, while obscuring their own role.
Then, 10 days later, on Nov. 27, a senior Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinated, apparently by Israel.
Read More: Top Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated outside Tehran, apparently by Israel
And a month after that, on Dec. 20, Iranian-backed forces broke their self-declared cease-fire for the second time.
Read More: Three rockets hit Baghdad’s Green Zone amid heightened tensions in Iraq
Following the Dec. 20 assault, US President Donald Trump met with his national security team to discuss options for retaliation, and he subsequently tweeted, “Some friendly health advice to Iran: If one American is killed, I will hold Iran responsible. Think it over.”
Indeed, as The Wall Street Journal first reported, that rocket attack was much bigger than what was initially stated based on information released by the Iraqi government: namely, just eight rockets.
Rather, it was 21 rockets that were fired at the embassy—the largest number since 2010, when the US was still fully deployed in Iraq under Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Some number of the rockets fired on Dec. 20 were blocked by the US Army’s C-RAM (Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar) System, which has been deployed to protect the embassy, and that may account for at least some of the discrepancy between the initial Iraqi figures and the later US count.
Increased Indications of Iranian Attack
Although some analysts suspect that Trump would welcome the chance to attack Iran in his final days in office, Tehran could, nonetheless, be fixed on retaliation. It might figure that Trump’s options would be limited, as the end of his term approaches, while the new Joe Biden administration would still want to improve ties with Iran, as it has indicated. So the cost to Iran, in that calculation, would be limited.
“Leaders of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have met with Quds Force leaders” and “a fair amount of advanced conventional weaponry” has flowed over the border from Iran into Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing a senior US defense official.
According to CNN, those weapons include short-range ballistic missiles.
“The threat streams are very real,” the senior US defense official continued, telling the Post that the situation was the “most concerning that I have seen” since Soleimani’s assassination.
Iran has yet to comment on the US show of force, but on Wednesday, apparently before CENTCOM released news of the B-52s’ flight, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani hailed Soleimani as a national hero and vowed revenge for his assassination.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany