Even as U.S. and Iranian representatives were meeting in Geneva on Feb. 17, a massive move of U.S. combat aircraft was on its way to Southwest Asia. A group called the Military Air Tracking Alliance has assembled the following tally of U.S. military aircraft movements of the last two days: 18 F-35A stealth fighters, 4 E-3 airborne early warning aircraft, 36 F-16s, 4 F-22 stealth fighter,s as well as a couple of dozen KC-135 and KC-46 air refueling tankers.
The War Zone adds a U-2 spy plane and the guided missile destroyer USS Pinckney to the tally. It also ups the F-22 count to at least a dozen, making the total number of fighter jets on the move since Monday (Feb. 16) 66.
“Taken together, the force now assembling in the Middle East, combined with the Israel Air Force’s capabilities, including hundreds of fighter aircraft, as well as USAF ‘global airpower’ bomber flights, would be enough for a major operation that could last weeks, not days. We will likely see additional assets deploy in the coming days,” TWZ says.
Where the latest wave of fighter jets is going to land in the region is not clear but most of the previous wave reportedly landed at Muwaffaq Salti air base in Jordan. If 64 more jets land there, it’s going to become very crowded. Making things even trickier is that the Jordanian government, along with the Saudis and the U.A.E., has already said it will not allow its airspace to be used for strikes on Iran.
With the addition of the USS Pinckney, the U.S. Navy now has 12 surface warships in the region, the USS Abraham Lincoln and its 3 escorting destroyers, 5 more guided missile destroyers including 2 in the Med, and 3 littoral combat ships (LCS) based in Bahrain—these ships are outfitted for mine warfare. When the USS Gerald R. Ford arrives, that’ll be 4 more ships.
