US boosts Gulf arsenal with aircraft carriers

Manama: The US has augmented its firepower in the Gulf with the arrival of the carrier Stennis, giving the Pentagon two carriers in the region for the first time since the start of the war on Iraq in 2003.

The Stennis strike group was previously in line to deploy to the Pacific, but is now strengthening a high level of US Navy presence in the Gulf. The Stennis and the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, already in the region, will soon be joined by the carrier Nimitz.

According to British military sources, the US navy can put six carriers into battle at a month's notice. But the Bahrain-based Navy facility, in a statement sent yesterday to Gulf News did not mention Iran as possible battle ground.

In Washington, the Pentagon dismissed as "ludicrous" a BBC report yesterday that the US military has drawn up detailed contingency plans for air strikes against Iran.

Also yesterday, the White House scoffed at comments from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian president said Tehran would refuse to meet a UN deadline Friday to halt sensitive uranium enrichment efforts, but would be willing to stop it if other nuclear powers were willing to do the same.

The rejection came as Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards staged war games simulating an enemy air strike, fighting back with 620 anti-aircraft weapons and shoulder-fired missiles, state television said.

- With additional inputs from Agencies