Massive U.S. military buildup reported south of Hormuz

PanARMENIAN.Net - While U.S. Preisdent Barack Obama’s supporters hailed his withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq as the end of the war in the middle east, behind the scenes the Pentagon has been quietly massing troops and armaments on two islands located just south of the Strait of Hormuz, and within easy striking distance of Iran, infowars.com reported.

In addition to some 50,000 U.S. troops currently in the region waiting for orders (apparently they won’t be home by this past Christmas as was originally promised), Obama is deploying an additional 50,000 soldiers to be ready for ‘any contingency’ by March:

Obama is reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and Washington sources to have secretly ordered U.S. air, naval and marine forces to build up heavy concentrations on two strategic islands – Socotra, which is part of a Yemeni archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the Omani island of Masirah at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz.

Western military sources familiar with the American buildup on the two strategic islands told DEBKA-Net-Weekly that, although they cannot cite precise figures, they are witnessing the heaviest American concentration of might in the region since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003.

U.S. air transports are described as making almost daily landings on Socotra and Masirah. They fly in from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, one of America’s biggest military facilities, just over 3,000 kilometers away. The U.S. military presence in the region will further expand in the first week of March when three U.S. aircraft carriers and their strike groups plus a French carrier arrive in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea: They are the USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson, USS Enterprise and the Charles de Gaulle nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. A fourth U.S. carrier will be standing by in the Pacific Ocean, a few days’ sailing time from the water off Iran’s coast, the report says.