The United States military said on Monday it flew a pair of nuclear-capable B-52 long-range bombers over the Middle East in a show of force, the latest such mission in the region as tensions between Washington and Tehran remain high. Is. The bombers took off from Royal Air Force Base in Fairford, England, and flew over the eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea on Sunday in training missions with Kuwaiti and Saudi warplanes before departing the area.
“The threats to America and our allies will not be answered,” Lieutenant General Alexus Grinkevich, the top US Air Force official in the Middle East, said in a statement. “Missions like these … demonstrate our ability to combine forces to stop and, if necessary, defeat our adversaries.” Although the US military’s Central Command did not mention Iran in its statement, Washington has frequently sent B-52 bombers to the region amid ongoing hostilities between the US and Iran. The last such flyover was in June.
Former President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from Tehran’s historic nuclear deal with world powers sparked a series of escalating incidents in the region. Iran’s navy last week seized two US maritime drones in the Red Sea, amid a dispute between diplomats over a possible revival of the nuclear deal. The capture came just days after the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard released another maritime drone as it was overtaken by a US warship.
The US Navy is deploying ultra-endurance aerial surveillance drones to monitor threats in critical waterways that have seen a series of maritime strikes. Tensions remain high even after recent clashes between US forces and Iranian-backed militias in the region. Washington carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria last month targeting areas used by militias backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, prompting a response from Iranian-backed fighters.
US and Iranian negotiators in Vienna are attempting to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, which imposed sharp limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions. Last week, the State Department described Iran’s latest negotiating position as “not constructive”.
Meanwhile, Iran now enriches uranium to 60 percent purity – a level it has never reached before, a small, technical step away from 90 percent.
While Iran has long kept its program peaceful, non-profile experts warn that Tehran has enough 60 percent enriched uranium to be reprocessed into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb.