US deploys B-2 bombers on Diego Garcia before talks with Iran

[Celerity]

The six B-2 Spirit bombers are capable of carrying ‘bunker-busting’ bombs that would be used to strike underground nuclear enrichment facilities

https://www.thetimes.com/article/e9c2b3e4-3c82-4a7e-9ea6-aa8bff283899

https://archive.ph/tPBnO



American stealth bombers capable of penetrating air defence systems have been stationed on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean before nuclear talks with Iran on Saturday. Six of the US air force’s fleet of 19 B-2 Spirit bombers appeared parked beside a runway on the main island of the British-held Chagos archipelago in satellite images captured this month. The US is waging a campaign of airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Chagos deployment accompanied efforts by President Trump to open direct negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme.



Trump requested direct talks in a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, last month, but President Pezeshkian of Iran later said the overture had been rejected in a response delivered to the Americans via the sultanate of Oman. Trump insisted on Monday that US and Iranian officials would hold direct and high-level talks on Saturday in “a very big meeting” in Oman, warning at the same time that “it’s getting to be very dangerous territory”. However, it appeared that the talks would involve mediators passing messages between the two teams. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, is to lead the US delegation, according to Axios.

The arrival of the B-2s on Diego Garcia has been cast by some observers as an effort to bring the Iranians to the negotiating table. They are also capable of carrying the large precision “bunker-busting” bombs that would be required in any strike on underground nuclear enrichment facilities. The bombers would give Trump “a military option that he can actually use these weapons against Iran if needed”, Blaine Holt, a retired air force general who was the former deputy US military representative to Nato, told Newsmax.



“But what I think makes this more of a deterrent package is the fact that all the bombers are not in hangers.” Instead, they could be photographed by satellites, as they soon were. “The idea is: ‘Do you see our sword? Because we could use this sword if we need to,’” he said. The Pentagon said that Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, had ordered “the deployment of additional squadrons and other air assets that will further reinforce our defensive air-support capabilities”.

snip