More US military reinforcements in the Gulf

A spokesman for the US naval forces said on Tuesday that the US aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and other five escorting warships had joined the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Gulf.

The spokesman for the US fleet, which has Bahrain as a headquarters, Commander Gordon Hume, was quoted as saying that aircraft carrier Enterprise will replace (troop rotation) the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, which is currently stationed in the area.

Commander Hume added that aircraft carrier Eisenhower, which arrived in the Gulf on October 22 to join the US troops which were preparing to launch military strikes against Iraq, will return to its US headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia by January 1999.

By the arrival of the aircraft carrier enterprise and the fighting group which is composed of five ships, the number of US warships deployed in the Arab Gulf, carrying 17,000 US troops, reached some 19 warships.