Islam Times - US Aircraft Carrier Deploys Off Korean Peninsula amid Tensions with North Korea

Islam Times - A US nuclear-powered carrier strike group has been deployed to the waters off the Korean peninsula for the first time since 2017 amid rapidly escalating tensions with North Korea over its missile tests.

Reports quoted a US official as saying on Tuesday that the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was presently operating in the Sea of Japan, located in eastern Asia, for exercises with Japanese forces.

The US Naval Institute’s USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker shows the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group currently stationed in the Sea of Japan.

South Korea, however, has refused to comment on whether it is also involved in the drills.

The move comes on the heels of an earlier report by South Korean media that the ships were deployed amid rising tensions in the Korean peninsula, weeks after North Korea successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time since 2017.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the group would be operating in the area for three to five days.

However, a spokesman for US Forces Korea (USFK), a sub-unified command of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said they would not comment on planned or ongoing drills.

This is the first time since 2017 that a US carrier group has been deployed to the waters between South Korea and Japan, marking a fresh escalation.

In 2017, three warships – the USS Ronald Reagan, USS Theodore Roosevelt, and USS Nimitz – were deployed to the region in a show of force following North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons tests.