Here’s Where U.S. Forces Are Deployed in the Middle East

As U.S. warships helped Israel shoot down missiles from an Iranian attack on Tuesday, the Pentagon was preparing to send thousands more U.S. troops, including three additional aircraft squadrons, to the Middle East.

That highlighted the scale of the American military presence in a region where war appears to be spreading.

Here’s an overview of where U.S. forces are operating in the Middle East, and what they are doing:

Eastern Mediterranean

• The United States has an amphibious assault ship and three guided-missile destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean, the part of the sea that borders Israel and Lebanon.

• U.S. warships there helped Israel shoot down Iranian missiles on Tuesday, President Biden told reporters after the attack.

• An aircraft carrier, the Harry S. Truman, left Virginia in late September on a scheduled deployment to the eastern Mediterranean. As of Monday it was still crossing the Atlantic.