WASHINGTON: The US has moved more warships and fighter aircraft to the Persian Gulf to keep the strategic Straits of Hormuz open and strike deep within Iran if the stand-off over its nuclear programme escalates.
Quoting senior American officials, The New York Times said the new deployment to bolster military presence in the gulf is aimed at reassuring Israel that Washington is serious about neutralizing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Iranian news agency IRNA said Iran’s revolutionary guards had fired 2,000-km range Shahab-3 missiles in the Kavir Desert in central Iran as part of its war games designs to show its ability to hit back, if attacked. The Times quoted senior US officials as saying that Washington was determined to keep the strategic waterway open at all costs. “The message to Iran is ‘don’t even think about closing the strait. We’ll clear the mines. Don’t even think about sending your fast boats out to harass our vessels or commercial shipping. We’ll put them on the bottom of the gulf,” a senior defence department official said. (PTI)
