The US and Israel on Monday announced that their militaries held joint naval drills a day earlier, exercises that come amid a major US military buildup in the region to prepare for a potential attack on Iran.
US Naval Forces Central Command/5th Fleet announced the drills and said the US guided-missile destroyer USS Delbert D. Black conducted a “routine maritime exercise” with the Israeli corvette INS Eilat.
“The combined training demonstrated the strong military partnership between US 5th Fleet and the Israeli Navy,” the US statement said.
The IDF said in its statement on the drills that it “was held as part of the ongoing cooperation between the Israeli Navy and the US 5th Fleet in the Red Sea arena.”
The US and Israel have been coordinating closely as President Trump has been threatening to attack Iran. The maritime drills came a few days after the top US and Israeli generals met at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, a meeting that hasn’t been officially acknowledged.
A US aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln recently arrived in the region, and President Trump has pointed to the “armada” in his threats to Iran. The US is also deploying additional air defenses to bases in the Middle East as it expects Iranian counterattacks if it bombs Iran.
