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President Trump said Wednesday that he’s instructed the U.S. Navy to “shoot down and destroy” any Iranian gunboats harassing American ships, in the wake of a tense encounter in the Persian Gulf. “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” Trump tweeted. The encounter happened last week. Six U.S. Navy warships were conducting drills with US Army Apache attack helicopters in international waters off Iran last Wednesday when they were repeatedly harassed by 11 Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Navy vessels, the U.S. Navy’s 5th...

On his nationally syndicated radio talk show “The Mark Levin Show” on Monday, host Mark Levin warned that if something serious isn’t done, Iran will take this attack as a first step. “I will say this, if something isn’t done, something serious and significant isn’t done respecting Iran, they’re going to take this as a first step,” stated Mark Levin. “I’m just telling you. They’re going to take this as a first step. So, we’ll see what happens.” Mark Levin’s comments came after a Saudi Arabian oil facility was attacked by “cruise missiles and drones,” FOX News reported, that “were...

As we celebrate Easter Sunday and the Jewish Passover, we should keep in our prayers and remembrances the many Americans who fought and sacrificed during that same time 73 years ago in the Battle of Okinawa. The event was Operation Iceberg. It was the bloodiest battle and the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II. On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, the Navy’s Fifth Fleet under Admiral Raymond Spruance attacked the Japanese-held island. They were joined by a British, Canadian, New Zealand, and Australian naval task force and more than 180,000 Army soldiers and Marines. This...

A nuclear-powered U.S. attack submarine struck a suspected fishing vessel shortly after passing through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf on Thursday, damaging one of the submarine's periscopes but injuring no one, a Navy official said on the condition of anonymity. The Navy's Fifth Fleet said in a statement the vessel appeared unaware of the incident, adding it "continued on a consistent course and speed offering no indication of distress or acknowledgment of a collision." The USS Jacksonville, a Los Angeles-class, nuclear-powered submarine, did not appear to suffer further damage, the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said. "The reactor remains in...

How would the US military respond if Iran attacked US interests – in retaliation for, say, an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities? What would a US counterattack look like? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington Monday to meet with President Obama – which comes in the midst of increasingly vocal warnings from Pentagon officials urging caution on any military action in the region – has brought these questions into sharp focus this week. These questions, too, were at the heart of one of the largest US military war-game exercises in a decade, meant to mirror the conditions...

Afonso de Albuquerque arrived at the Indian Ocean in 1506 commanding a squadron of five war vessels integrated in Tristão da Cunha's Armada. In the summer of 1507, after the conquest of Socotra, the Armada's main objective, Afonso de Albuquerque departed on his own commanding a fleet of six vessels and 500 marines to take the easternmost island at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, called by local folk Hormuz. Defeating a garrison of 15,000 men with his artillery, Albuquerque took Hormuz and commissioned the construction of a fortress. This island would eventually lend its name to one of the...

Even as it continued to talk with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Iran continued to prepare for war over its nuclear weapons program, training for kamikaze attacks in the Persian Gulf with both planes and speedboats, sources within the Iranian armed forces report. Ads by GooglePeople Search-Search Free 1) Enter Any Name & Search Free! 2) Get Phone, Address, Age & More. www.intelius.comA 9mm is False Protection Discover What Survivalist Masters & The Army Don't Want You To Know www.CloseCombatTraining.comTuesday the International Atomic Energy Agency called its recent talks with Iran a failure. And just days before, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah...

The Pentagon is beefing up U.S. sea- and land-based defenses in the Persian Gulf to counter any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military has notified Congress of plans to preposition new mine-detection and clearing equipment and expand surveillance capabilities in and around the strait, according to defense officials briefed on the requests, including one submitted earlier this month. The military also wants to quickly modify weapons systems on ships so they could be used against Iranian fast-attack boats, as well as shore-launched cruise missiles, the defense officials said. The readiness push is spearheaded by...

The carrier, along with the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group, reaches the region as tensions are rising with Iran. Deployed San Diego-based ships in the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and Makin Island groups are now in the Middle East, the U.S. Fifth Fleet and Central Command has announced. The sailors, Marines and airmen aboard the ships arrive after Iranian officials recent threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for the world's oil supply, and warned a departing U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, not to return to the Persian Gulf.

Iranian naval chief Habibollah Sayyari said Wednesday that "Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's armed forces is really easy ... or as Iranians say it will be easier than drinking a glass of water." Parisa Hafezi of Reuters reports Sayyari then topped this off by saying that while his forces could do this at any time, there was currently no need, as they control the Sea of Oman and therefore all shipping through the strait. Iran's threats Tuesday to close the strait sent oil prices up close to 2%, but it won't last. Oil analyst Thorbjoern bak Jensen, with...

France's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier is now en route to the region and will arrive there at the end of October, when a quarter of the world's nuclear aircraft carriers will gather in the stratgeic waters. The French carrier is accompanied by two frigates, an attack submarine, a re-fuelling tanker, 3,000 sailors and 27 aircraft. "The force would help allied navies fight piracy off the coast of Somalia and send jets to support NATO in the skies above Afghanistan," said the commander of the group, Rear Admiral Jean-Louis Kerignard. This is while new opinion polls show that a vast...

The U.S. Navy has extended by one year the time its first high-altitude drone will monitor oil shipments and other maritime activity in the Persian Gulf region, according to officials. Northrop Grumman Corp. built the plane, a demonstration version of its Global Hawk that's used by the Air Force, as the first model in a $9 billion Navy program for 68 unmanned planes to provide reconnaissance in five areas of the world. The aircraft has been flying over the Gulf region since February 2009 and was slated to end its patrols this year to undergo additional stateside testing and development....

Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (CSG) will relieve the Dwight D. Eisenhower CSG as Commander, Task Force 50 July 2, beginning a routine deployment to the U.S. 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility (AOR). Under Task Force 50, Truman CSG will conduct close air support missions in support of coalition forces on the ground in Afghanistan while conducting Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in the AOR. Eisenhower CSG has operated in the 5th Fleet AOR since Jan. 25 with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 7 aircraft flying 2,970 combat sorties and 17,730 cumulative flight hours in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)....

As we first reported last week, in an article that was met with much original skepticism, the Pentagon has now confirmed that a fleet of 12 warships has passed the Suez Canal, and is now likely awaiting orders to support the escalation in the Persian Gulf. The attached image from Stratfor shows the latest positioning of US aircraft carrier groups as of June 23: the USS Harry Truman (CVN-75) is now right next to USS Eisenhower (CVN 69), both of which areAs for the catalyst the two carriers may be anticipating, we provide the following update from the Gulf Daily...

Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (CSG) entered the 5th Fleet area of responsibility (AOR) June 18 after completing a successful transit through the Suez Canal. Truman CSG is relieving Dwight D. Eisenhower CSG as part of a routine rotation of forces during a scheduled deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, Maritime Security Operations (MSO) and theater security cooperation (TSC) efforts in the region. "I am very proud of the men and women of the Truman Carrier Strike Group as we join the 5th Fleet," said Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, commander, Carrier Strike Group 10. "We have trained hard...

debkafile's military sources report a decision by the Obama administration to boost US military strength in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf regions in the short term with an extra air and naval strike forces and 6,000 Marine and sea combatants. Carrier Strike Group 10, headed by the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, sails out of the US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia Friday, May 21. On arrival, it will raise the number of US carriers off Iranian shores to two. Up until now, President Barack Obama kept just one aircraft carrier stationed off the coast of Iran, the USS...

In Phases Two and Three of Iran's biggest sea exercise ever (May 6-7), debkafile's military sources report its Navy and Revolutionary Guards acted out a scenario for driving US naval forces out of the Persian Gulf after defeating them - as well as responding to potential retaliatory American WMD strikes. Thursday night, May 6, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki meanwhile informed the 15 Security Council members he invited to dinner at UN headquarters, New York, that his government would "definitely continue its nuclear program." They all attended including a low-ranking US official. The eight-day war game, dubbed "The Last Prophet"...

Military experts say the Fifth Fleet has come a long way since Iranian gunboats crippled it within hours in a notorious war game five years ago. In fact, says John Pike, president of the Alexandria, Va.-based Global Security Web site, the Navy was well on its way to solving the challenge of fending off the swarming swift boats before the war game began. In that test, an enemy "red team" headed by retired Martine Corps Gen. Paul Van Riper deployed the gun boats and propeller-driven suicide planes to paralyze the Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. It...

The U.S. Navy said on Monday it was carrying out an exercise in the Gulf, days after vowing that Iran will not be allowed to block the waterway which carries crude from the world's largest oil-exporting region. "The aim of Exercise Stake Net is to practice the tactics and procedures of protecting maritime infrastructure such as gas and oil installations," Commodore Peter Hudson said in a U.S. Fifth Fleet statement.

MANAMA (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy began a series of exercises in the Gulf and wider Gulf waters on Friday involving a U.S aircraft carrier and two expeditionary assault ships. The five-day crisis response exercise involved amphibious, air and medical forces, the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, said in a statement. "The scenario is challenging but prepares us for a real-world event," Commander Jay Chambers, of Combined Task Force 59, said. The start of the exercises coincided with world powers agreeing at talks in London to push ahead with a third round of sanctions against Iran, unless reports...