Fears of Middle East war grow as US will deploy more fighter jets and warships in the region
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00:00It's the latest attempt by Washington just to discourage attacks on its ally Israel and afford a wider regional
00:06Escalation of the war in Gaza the Pentagon says it's bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect
00:13US personnel and to defend Israel with the details. Here's our Washington correspondent Fraser Jackson
00:21Well, we first got word about this
00:23Potential movements on Friday and got more details in the late hours of Friday when Sabrina Singh the spokesperson
00:30For the Pentagon said Secretary Austin has ordered adjustments to US military posture
00:35designed to improve US force protection to increase support for the defense of Israel and to ensure the United States is prepared to respond to
00:43Various contingencies now that means that they are going to be putting forward a multi-pronged
00:48Approach effectively one of them is a new squadron of fighter jets heading to the area
00:53Which are mainly there to act as a deterrent
00:56the main things really that are going to be more impactful in terms of the defense of Israel are going to be the battery of
01:02Navy cruisers and destroyers that are being sent their way
01:05They have capabilities to shoot down ballistic missiles
01:09And that is going to be important because that attack from Iran on Israel in April saw
01:14300 projectiles heading towards Israel and the vast majority of which were obviously shot down
01:20So the bulking up of these will really help should this attack be larger than what we saw in April
01:26And that is something that US officials we are told are worried about that
01:31This could be a larger a more complicated strike than what we saw in April. There's also the potential for land-based
01:37Missile ballistic missile defense systems, so really things there to help beef up the Israeli
01:43I am dome
01:44Missile defense system that already isn't in place and the main thing really is the aircraft carrier strike group
01:51there was talk that the one that is currently there that the
01:54Theodore Roosevelt when it finishes its mission in a few weeks whether it would be replaced
01:58Well, we now know that it will be and that's the Abraham Lincoln carrier group will now head into that area from the East Pacific
02:05as well
02:06now that will mean that those aircraft will arrive in the next couple of days, but it will take a
02:11Considerably longer time for the ships and boats to get there
02:14Potentially a couple of weeks, of course the last time we saw an attack from Iran towards Israel
02:19It took two weeks before between what we saw as the spark of that attack to the actual attack taking place
02:25So we'll see whether it's any less time now or longer
02:28And we're also looking to see whether other other nations get involved last time France and the UK
02:34Both shot down missiles under the guise of protecting their own forces and their own
02:39Assets in the region and we're keeping an eye out to see whether that will happen this time as well