President Donald Trump is expediting the deployment of American troops to the Middle East for his war he said he’d never start.
Thousands of sailors and Marines are expected to sail to the region, Newsmax reported on Thursday, citing four U.S. military officials who spoke under condition of anonymity.
The Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit are mobilizing ahead of schedule, the report adds. The Washington Post also confirmed the deployment.
The force includes 2,500 Marines among around 4,000 total service members aboard the USS Boxer, the USS Portland, and the USS Comstock. The Boxer is characterized as an amphibious assault ship, while the others are amphibious transport dock ships.
The three ships carry F-35 fighter jets and amphibious vehicles that can be launched to breach a ground assault, the outlet reported.
Fox 5 notes that the Boxer had left its dock in San Diego, California, this week to begin its journey through the Indo-Pacific towards the Middle East.
The USS Tripoli, another amphibious warship carrying Marines, had been deployed to the Middle East earlier this week, also equipped with a variety of advanced weaponry. Amphibious Ready Groups travel in groups of three ships, but the two other ships that will deploy alongside the Tripoli have not yet been reported.
The outlet reported that six amphibious ships will add around 8,000 military personnel in the region, including between 4,000 and 5,000 Marines.
Trump, 79, was asked by a reporter earlier on Thursday whether the U.S. would deploy ground forces in Iran, as the conflict that began on Feb. 28 has escalated to the targeting of energy infrastructure across the Middle East.
“I’m not putting troops anywhere,” Trump said. “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.”
Two days prior, the president said that he was “not afraid” to put American boots on the ground in Iran during an Oval Office meeting with Ireland’s Taoiseach, Micheál Martin.
“I’m really not afraid of that,” he said, “I’m really not afraid of anything.”
Since the U.S. and Israeli joint offensive began less than a month ago, 13 American service members have died and over 200 have been wounded or injured, including 10 severely, according to the Pentagon.
Six American service members were killed on March 1 when an Iranian drone struck a mobile operations center in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait. Another six military personnel were killed on March 12 when a KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq after an incident with another friendly aircraft, which landed safely.
On March 1, Trump said that “there will likely be more” Americans who die before the end of the conflict, though no concrete timeframe has been given.
Though both Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have said that the U.S. military has “decimated” Iranian forces, the president said on March 13 that the war will end “when I feel it in my bones.”
The Daily Beast reached out to U.S. Central Command and the White House for comment.
Reached for comment, the Pentagon deferred the Daily Beast to U.S. Central Command.
