WASHINGTON, May 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) – U.S. Acting Secretary of Defence, Patrick Shanahan, agreed to send an amphibious transport dock and air defence system to the Middle East, Pentagon said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shanahan approved the U.S. Central Command’s request earlier this week, to deploy the amphibious transport dock, U.S.S. Arlington, and a Patriot missile battery, to the Middle East, said the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S.S. Arlington is a San Antonio-class ship, with the capability to support amphibious assault, special operations, or expeditionary warfare missions, according to the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The statement also said, the amphibious transport dock also provides command and control capability and inter-operability with U.S. regional allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Patriot missile system is a long-range air defence system to intercept incoming missiles and aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This latest deployment came, days after the White House announcement of sending the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group and bombers to the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These newly deployed assets would respond to “indications of heightened Iranian readiness to conduct offensive operations against U.S. forces and our interests,” the Pentagon statement noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, dismissed such accusations. “If U.S. and clients don’t feel safe, it’s because they’re despised by the people of the region — blaming Iran won’t reverse that,” he tweeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the recent weeks, Washington has ratcheted up pressure against Tehran with a series of sanctions, designations and military threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In response, Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, announced Tehran’s withdrawal from complying with the restrictions posed by the Iran nuclear deal on the country’s enriched uranium reserves and heavy water supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rouhani also set a 60-day deadline for the remaining parties to the deal, to fulfil their obligations, particularly in preserving Iran’s interests in the areas of banking and oil.– NNN-AGENCIES <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON, May 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) – U.S. Acting Secretary of Defence, Patrick Shanahan, agreed to send an amphibious transport dock and air defence system to the Middle East, Pentagon said in a statement. Shanahan approved the U.S. Central Command’s request earlier this week, to deploy the amphibious transport dock, U.S.S. Arlington, and a Patriot missile battery, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":24435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208,215,300,194],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24431"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}