{"id":169562,"date":"2026-03-20T20:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/169562\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T20:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:00:20","slug":"pentagon-deploying-2500-marines-and-3-warships-to-the-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/169562\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon deploying 2,500 Marines and 3 warships to the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 The Pentagon is deploying another three-ship expeditionary unit \u2014 with about 2,500 Marines aboard \u2014 to the Middle East, the second such dispatch in a matter of days as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/18\/us-news\/trump-admin-considering-deploying-troops-to-iranian-shores-along-strait-of-hormuz-kharg-island-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">President Trump attempts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>\u00a0to international shipping.<\/p>\n<p>The San Diego-based USS Boxer amphibious assault ship and two other ships comprising the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit are sailing to the region \u2013 a voyage that will take weeks \u2014 the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/livecoverage\/iran-us-israel-war-updates-2026\/card\/pentagon-sending-thousands-of-additional-marines-to-middle-east-eZKaCmWQ3vp12vhNbFbV\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wmtw.com\/article\/us-warships-marines-middle-east\/70802922\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Associated Press<\/a>\u00a0reported Friday.<\/p>\n<p>A different expeditionary unit of similar size is already en route, consisting of the Japan-based USS Tripoli, another amphibious assault ship, and two supporting ships.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The USS Abraham Lincoln is sailing on March 3, 2026. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>That group\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.usni.org\/2026\/03\/18\/3-ship-tripoli-arg-31st-meu-transit-malacca-strait-en-route-to-the-middle-east\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">was reported crossing<\/a>\u00a0the Strait of Malacca north of Singapore on Wednesday and was expected to reach the waters near Iran by the end of March.<\/p>\n<p>Trump has not ruled out ordering troops to storm Iran\u2019s coastline to secure the strategic waterway. <\/p>\n<p>He said Thursday he had no immediate plans for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/19\/world-news\/us-deploys-a-10-warthogs-apache-helicopters-to-secure-strait-of-hormuz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">boots on the ground<\/a>, but also suggested he wouldn\u2019t preview military moves in the press.<\/p>\n<p>In a Friday interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum, Trump stated that he\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/marthamaccallum\/status\/2035021041353846929\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">needed \u201cnumbers\u201d\u00a0<\/a>to reopen the Strait \u2014 after railing hours earlier about\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/20\/us-news\/trump-calls-nato-members-cowards-over-refusal-to-help-open-strait-of-hormuz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">\u201ccowards\u201d in the NATO alliance<\/a>\u00a0unwilling to help militarily.<\/p>\n<p>An F\/A-18E Super Hornet attached to a strike fighter squadron aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. US NAVY\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>US sailors transfer ordnance on the flight deck of aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. U.S. Central Command Public Affairs<\/p>\n<p>The president\u2019s prior naval deployments have foreshadowed large-scale action, including his positioning of two aircraft carrier strike groups near Iran just before launching the joint US-Israeli war on Feb. 28.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trump previously assembled an armada near Venezuela before ordering the Jan. 3 raid that captured the country\u2019s president, Nicolas Maduro, to face US drug and weapons charges.<\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon declined to comment on the latest deployment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The Pentagon is deploying another three-ship expeditionary unit \u2014 with about 2,500 Marines aboard \u2014 to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14670,6478,164,9,11,10,62206,87,62208,30305,58],"class_list":["post-169562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-iran","tag-marines","tag-middle-east","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-operation-epic-fury","tag-politics","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-the-pentagon","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}