Yemen Embasst closed, : USS Iwo Jima with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit not needed

While U.S. embassy personnel were leaving Yemen, U.S. Navy and 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit forces operating from the USS Iwo Jima in the Red Sea were standing by to assist the State Department’s departure from Yemen, but they were not needed, 5th Fleet officials said.

[February 10 Yemen Embasst closing, USS New York and USS Fort McHenry away:  USS Iwo Jima with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit still off Yemen

USS Iwo Jima with USS Fort McHenry

United States is closing its embassy in Yemen. A contingent of U.S. Marines was protecting the embassy while a Navy amphibious assault ship, the USS Iwo Jima, was in the Red Sea off Yemen’s coast and would be available to help with the evacuation of embassy staff, if requested from the State Department.   The two other ships in the Iwo Jima amphibious ready group (ARG) – USS Fort McHenry (LSD- 43) and USS New York (LPD-21) are not on station and are operating in other parts of U.S. Central Command, 

January 24 

                                                                            

The USS Iwo Jima and the USS Fort McHenry with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit are in position in the event the State Department decides to evacuate Americans from Yemen.   The two ships are in the region with the USS New York, which is in the Arabian Gulf,. The New York is also a transport docking ship. The three vessels make up part of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group.

[September 16 2012 ]

SH-60 Sea Hawk helicopter hovers over the guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul in the Arabian Sea May 3, 2012. 

USS McFaul

14 ships and at least 12,000 sailors and Marines are currently deployed in areas around Libya where they could respond if called upon. They include USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group and the Enterprise and Eisenhower Carrier Strike Groups.[September 13]USS Laboon,  commissioned on 18 March 1995, which had been making a port call in Crete, is in position off Libya.  USS McFaul, 25 April 1998, was a couple of days away,   Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith and two other Americans who have not yet been identified were killed when gunmen stormed the consulate and another U.S. safe house in Benghazi on 9/11, the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks carried out by al Qaeda in Washington and New York..


Class and type: Arleigh Burke-class destroyer
Displacement: Light: approx. 6,800 long tons (6,900 t)
Full: approx. 8,900 long tons (9,000 t)
Length: 505 ft (154 m)
Beam: 66 ft (20 m)
Draft: 31 ft (9.4 m)
Propulsion: 4 General Electric LM2500-30 gas turbines, two shafts, 100,000 total shaft horsepower (75 MW)
Speed: >30 knots (56 km/h)
Range: 4,400 nautical miles at 20 knots
(8,100 km at 37 km/h)
Complement: 33 Officers
38 Chief Petty Officers
210 Enlisted Personnel
Sensors and
processing systems:
AN/SPY-1D 3D Radar
AN/SPS-67(V)2 Surface Search Radar
AN/SPS-73(V)12 Surface Search Radar
AN/SQS-53C Sonar Array
AN/SQR-19 Tactical Towed Array Sonar
AN/SQQ-28 LAMPS III Shipboard System
Electronic warfare
and decoys:
AN/SLQ-32(V)2 Electronic Warfare System
AN/SLQ-25 Nixie Torpedo Countermeasures
MK 36 MOD 12 Decoy Launching System
AN/SLQ-39 CHAFF Buoys
Armament:
1 × 29 cell, 1 × 61 cell Mk 41 vertical launch systems with 90 × RIM-156 SM-2, BGM-109 Tomahawk or RUM-139 VL-Asroc missiles
1 × Mark 45 5/54 in (127/54 mm)
2 × 25 mm chain gun
4 × .50 caliber (12.7 mm) guns
2 × 20 mm Phalanx CIWS
2 × Mk 32 triple torpedo tubes
Aircraft carried: 1 SH-60 Sea Hawk helicopter can be embarked