US Navy carrier quits Arabian Gulf region

washington — The US is bringing an aircraft carrier home from the Arabian Gulf region, the Defence Department said on Friday, after keeping two of the warships there for months as the Obama administration considered a military strike on Syria.

The decision to bring back the underscores the shift from a pointed military threat against the Syrian government to a broader diplomatic approach. It comes as international experts work to meet a mid-2014 deadline to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons program. According to officials, the

moved through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea, and is expected to be back at its home port on the West Coast before Christmas. The Navy destroyer the also has left the Mediterranean Sea and is returning home.

The US sharply increased its Navy presence in the region after a deadly Aug. 21 chemical weapon attack on rebel-held Damascus suburbs. Washing- ton and its allies said the Syrian government was responsible for the attack. The US spread cruisers and destroyers across the eastern Mediterranean, waiting for the command to launch missiles into Syria. But after threatening military action, President Barack Obama on August 31 abruptly announced he would go to Congress for approval of a strike.

After vocal opposition in Congress, the US and allies increased diplomatic efforts, ultimately securing the right for experts to inspect chemical weapons sites in Syria as part of a mission to destroy all facilities and machinery for mixing the chemicals into poison gas.

Syria is believed to possess around 1,000 metric tonnes of chemical weapons, including mustard gas and sarin. The aircraft carrier

remains in the North Arabian Sea, and three US warships — the and the stroyers, and the a cruiser — are in the eastern Mediterranean. —

both de-