Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group MED 15 Deployment
LHD-7 Iwo Jima
"Uncommon Valor"
The USS Iwo Jima with 1,200 sailors aboard left Naval Station Mayport for a seven-month deployment on 12 December 2014. The USS New York also departed with 400 sailors aboard. The ships were headed for the Mediterranean and the Middle East, but first they would pick up 2,000 Marines in North Carolina.
Two US Navy ships were deployed to the Red Sea 21 January 2015 to evacuate if necessary American citizens from the US embassy in Yemen amid reports that Houthi rebels have overrun the president's palace in the capital. There were no immediate plans to evacuate the embassy, but the USS Fort McHenry and the USS Iwo Jima warships would remain on standby off the Yemeni coast "because they will be in the best position if asked," CNN quoted a US official familiar with the evacuation plan, as saying.
The decision to dispatch the ships was taken by the US Department of State as clashes between the Houthi rebels and Yemeni government troops in the country's capital Sanaa intensified.
On 25 March 2015 Saudi Arabia announced a launch of a military operation against the Houthis, who currently control large parts of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa. Houthi militants had reportedly captured large stocks of weaponry from Yemen military sites. Bahrain, Qatar and Egypt and other states are also participating in the Saudi-led coalition. The Gulf nations claim the campaign is a response to a request by Yemen's ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.
The two warships, the USS Iwo Jima and the USS Fort McHenry, were on standby in the Red Sea and were ready to respond to the rebel uprising
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