US cable news network NewsNation reported on Thursday that the Pentagon ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln and its carrier strike group, which includes Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, to leave their position in the South China Sea and sail towards the Middle East.
According to the US Naval Institute’s carrier tracker, there were no US aircraft carriers deployed in the Middle East under the US Central Command as of Monday. The Abraham Lincoln was the closest to the region of all the carrier strike groups on active duty, operating in the waters near Scarborough Shoal.
It left its homeport of San Diego in November and has been in the South China Sea since last month, operating for at least two weeks in the resource-rich waterway claimed by various countries in the region.
According to footage released by the Pentagon’s Defence Visual Information Distribution Service, the Abraham Lincoln conducted various training activities last week.
These included the live-fire drill on January 8, an exercise that involved a Phalanx close-in weapons system – an array of mounted turrets designed to counter incoming missiles, aircraft and boats. The drill also involved flight operations, replenishments at sea, damage control training and explosive ordnance disposal drills, according to the service.
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