The US military will move an aircraft carrier, fighter jet squadron, cruisers and destroyers with ballistic missile capability, and land-based ballistic missiles to West Asia, the Pentagon announced on 2 August, to help defend Israel from possible retaliatory attacks by the Axis of Resistance, led by Iran. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is ordering the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to West Asia, where it will join the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which is in the Gulf of Oman.