MANAMA • The US Navy said yesterday it had ordered an aircraft carrier to the Gulf to replace one of two patrolling the region, as the United States winds down naval war games on Iran’s doorstep.

The Nimitz carrier strike group will sail from San Diego for the Gulf on Monday, a navy spokesman said, to replace the Dwight D Eisenhower, as tensions mount between Iran and the West over captured British troops and Iran’s nuclear programme.

“She (the Nimitz) will be deployed to the Gulf region. She is the relief for Eisenhower, who leaves and she replaces her,” Lieutenant Commander Jeff Davis said by telephone from Naval Headquarters in Washington.

Strike groups typically include four or five frigates and destroyers and a submarine.

“You are looking at the early part of May that you would have the transition. It would be without any overlap. There is no plan to overlap them at all,” he added.

The Eisenhower and fellow carrier John C Stennis took part in this week’s US war games, the largest in Gulf waters since 2003, when the US led an invasion of Iraq.

The drills, which included anti-submarine, anti-surface and mine warfare drills, ended yesterday. For the first time since the Iraq invasion four years ago, two US aircraft carriers were deployed in the Gulf.

Fifth Fleet spokesman Lieutenant-Commander Charlie Brown said there were currently no plans for more. “We do not expect to have three carriers in the Gulf region ... but we cannot talk about future needs or future operations,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the US not to aggravate tensions with Iran with its naval presence in the Gulf.

IRANIAN EXERCISES

The Fifth Fleet has said a decision to hold the exercises was taken within the last two weeks, and planning for the drills accelerated as tensions mounted between Iran and the West over Iran’s nuclear programme and its capture of British sailors.

Spokesmen for the fleet, based in the Gulf island state of Bahrain, have said the exercises were meant to reassure allies of the US commitment to security and stability in the region. Only US ships took part in the manoeuvres.

On Wednesday, Iranian state media quoted Ali Reza Tangsiri, a Revolutionary Guards navy commander, as saying Iran, which last Thursday also started a week of naval exercises in the Gulf, was monitoring foreign warships closely.

“Based on our forces’ observations (US) claims ... about a big American manoeuvre in this region are not true,” he said.

In February Iran said it had tested missiles that could “sink big warships” in the Gulf.

Meanwhile, Iran accused that the group of 15 detained British naval personnel entered its territory several times before they were seized and Tehran had film to prove it, an Iranian naval official said yesterday.

Britain insists the British personnel, who were detained on Friday, were seized in Iraqi waters and has demanded their immediate release.

“These 15 British soldiers, with two boats and fully equipped, entered Iranian waters in six areas and made stops in Iranian waters before they were arrested by Iranian forces, based in the region, on Friday,” the unnamed naval official was quoted by the official Irna news agency as saying.

“Documents and films about the violations of international regulations by British forces have been recorded by Iranian coastal guards,” the official added.

Britain said a global positioning system (GPS) readout showed the naval personnel were in Iraqi territory. Iran says its GPS readout shows they were in Iranian waters.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the British embassy asking for “necessary guarantees that violations against Iranian waters would not be repeated”, Irna also reported.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has expressed its objections about the illegal act of violating Iranian waters,” Irna quoted the letter as saying, adding that Iran planned to lodge the message with the United Nations.

Britain, which maintains its 15 sailors were within Iraqi waters when captured by Iranian forces, wants UN Security Council members to endorse a statement that would “deplore” their detention.