WASHINGTON — Additional US F-15 fighter jets have arrived in the Middle East as the Biden administration seeks to dissuade Iran from launching yet another retaliatory attack against Israel amid a drawn-out exchange of strikes that risk escalating into a wider conflict.
The fighters join other American strike aircraft in the region amassed by the Pentagon in recent weeks in response to Iranian officials’ threats to retaliate against Israel. Among the recently deployed assets are additional Navy destroyers and several B-52 bombers based at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
The Pentagon announced the deployments last week as replacing the strike capabilities of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which was scheduled to return home.
Iran’s top leader, Ali Khamenei, last week threatened to exact a “crushing blow” against the United States and Israel for Israel’s expanded war campaign, which has devastated Hamas in Gaza as well as the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and its Iran-linked arms suppliers in Syria. On Thursday, Israel’s outgoing defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said that Hamas had been defeated and that Israel achieved all its objectives — a stance that has put him at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pressed to continue the war and fired Gallant earlier this week.
US Central Command had not publicly confirmed the arrival of the additional F-15s by publication time. It was first reported by Israeli news outlets on Thursday morning and confirmed to Al-Monitor by two US officials.
Israeli warplanes disabled Iran’s Russian-made S-300 air defenses from afar on Oct. 16, crippling the Islamic Republic’s ability to defend its airspace — at least until Moscow, whose military remains bogged down in Ukraine, can resupply Tehran with advanced air defense systems.
The Israeli strikes came in response to a second round of Iranian drone and ballistic missile barrages against Israel, both of which were largely thwarted by Israeli air defenses supported by a US-organized regional air defense coalition.
