U.S. carrier group redirected toward North Korea
Admiral calls it ‘No. 1 threat in the region’
Amid rising tensions with North Korea, an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson were heading toward the Korean Peninsula.
The aircraft carrier and its accompanying ships had been scheduled to leave from Singapore for port visits to Australia on Saturday, but Adm. Harry Harris, head of U.S. Pacific Command, ordered the strike group to head north toward Korean waters instead.
“U.S. Pacific Command ordered the Carl Vinson Strike Group north as a prudent measure to maintain readiness and presence in the Western Pacific,” Cmdr. Dave Benham said in a statement.
“The number one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,” he added.
North Korea’s provocative behavior in recent months has raised tension levels in the region and is emerging as one of the key foreign policy and defense challenges for the new Trump administration.
The secretive communist state test-fired a ballistic missile on April 5 into the Sea of Japan, ahead of Thursday’s meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The missile appeared to malfunction during flight before crashing into the sea and flew only about 40 miles, according to U.S. defense officials.
The launch is the latest in a recent series of missile tests by North Korea, which maintains a nuclear weapons program. On March 6, North Korea launched four ballistic missiles, which traveled over 600 miles before descending into the Sea of Japan. Another attempted test on March 22 failed after the missile exploded within seconds of launching.