A new US-led contingency headquarters for joint US, Israeli, Jordanian and Turkish operations inside Syria will go into action if any or all these allies should come under chemical or biological attack. This was the upshot of the talks US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel held with visiting Israeli defense Minister Ehud Barak at the Pentagon Tuesday, March 5. Hagel forecast imminent chemical warfare that would be kicked off by  Al Qaeda-linked militias to further their territorial expansion plans and quickly spill over Syria's borders..

Shortly before the Six Power talks with Iran resumed this week, US President Barack Obama ordered the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier to withdraw from Guff waters opposite Iran and redeploy in the Aegean Sea. This action signaled Washington's switch to the search for middle ground on the nuclear controversy through diplomatic engagement - just six weeks after he opted for a build-up of military pressure on Tehran, debkafile's military sources report.

To meet increasingly defiant Iranian threats to US regional military forces, Washington has detached the USS Truman carrier from support duty for Afghanistan in the Arabian Sea and reassigned it to Dubai opposite the Gulf of Oman and the Straits of Hormuz with thousands of marines aboard.
IRGC Navy chief announced the introduction of twelve new torpedo and missile cruisers and speedboats equipped for striking air carriers. Another IRGC commander said mass graves had been dug for American troops.

The 10 US warships plus an Israeli and German battle vessel each, which transited the Suez Canal Friday, June 18, have reached the Persian Gulf.  But first, from June 6 through June 10, the USS Harry S. Truman carrier Strike Group was deployed 50 miles off the shore of southwestern Israel on a secret joint war exercise, as first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 449 on June 18.

An armada of 11 US warships and one Israeli vessel passed through the Suez Canal Friday June 18 on their way to the Persian Gulf, debkafile's military sources report. The fleet was led by the USS Harry Truman carrier and its Strike Group.
This massive military movement is a strong new factor in the continually rising Middle East tensions of the last two weeks to which Iran has not so far responded.