The USS Nimitz carrier strike group is on its way to the Middle East from the South China Sea, a U.S. official told Fox News. 

The previously planned deployment of the Nimitz strike group, meant to relieve the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group after its lengthy deployment, has been expedited. This results in both groups being stationed in the Middle East simultaneously.

USS Carl Vinson was the only aircraft carrier in the region as of last Friday, U.S. defense officials told Fox News. 

According to U.S. officials speaking to Fox News, American air defense systems and a Navy destroyer aided Israel in intercepting ballistic missiles launched from Iran last Friday.

The U.S. has both ground-based Patriot missile defense systems and Terminal High Altitude Air Defense systems in the Middle East capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.

The U.S. Navy also had the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, which is capable of defending against ballistic missiles, begin sailing from the western Mediterranean Sea toward the eastern Mediterranean, U.S. officials told Fox News. They said the Navy also had directed another destroyer to move forward so it could be available if requested by the White House.

An Israeli attack on the Shahran oil depot on June 15, 2025 in Tehran, Iran. (Stringer/Getty Images)

One of the officials cited the Nimitz, which was in the Indo-Pacific at the time, as well as USS George Washington, which had just left its port in Japan, as assets the Navy could possibly surge to the Middle East if so ordered. 

American fighter jets were also patrolling the sky in the Middle East to protect personnel and installations, and air bases in the region are taking additional security precautions, the officials said.

Typically, around 30,000 troops are based in the Middle East, and about 40,000 troops are in the region now, one of the U.S. officials told The Associated Press. That number surged as high as 43,000 last October amid the ongoing tensions between Israel and Iran as well as continuous attacks on commercial and military ships in the Red Sea by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.

Former President Joe Biden initially surged ships to protect Israel, a close U.S. ally, following the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Iran-backed Hamas terrorists. It was seen at the time as a deterrent against Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Iran.

On Oct. 1, 2024, U.S. Navy destroyers fired about a dozen interceptors in defense of Israel as the country came under attack by more than 200 missiles fired by Iran.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.