AFP

The US military plans to send a large floating base for commando teams
to the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran and intensifying
fighting in Yemen, according to The Washington Post.

Citing unspecified procurement documents, the newspaper said the Navy is
converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a
makeshift staging base for the commandos in response to requests from
the US Central Command.

Unofficially dubbed a "mothership," the floating base could accommodate
smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs,
the report said.

Special operations forces are a key part of President Barack Obama's
strategy to make the military leaner and more agile as the Pentagon
confronts at least $487 billion in spending cuts over the next decade,
the paper noted.

Mike Kafka, a spokesman for the Navy's Fleet Forces Command, declined to
elaborate on the floating base's purpose or to say where, exactly, it
will be deployed in the Middle East, The Post said.

Other Navy officials acknowledged that they were moving with unusual
haste to complete the conversion and send the mothership to the region
by early summer, the report said.

Navy documents indicate that it could be headed to the Persian Gulf,
where Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, The Post noted.

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