Late Friday, the Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group in the region as well as additional ballistic missile defense warships, according to Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secertary.
Austin also ordered the deployment of an additional fighter squadron to the Middle East, Singh said in a statement. A Defense official identified those warplanes as F-22s, the Air Force's most sophisticated warplanes. An attack by Iran or its proxies on Israel is expected, according to the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.