The United States is to dispatch a small extra number of dozen troops to the Middle East to counteract increased violence between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon that has raised the possibility of a wider conflict in the region, said the Pentagon today.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, wasn’t specific about how many more forces would be deployed or their missions. Experts estimate that the US currently deploys approximately 40,000 military personnel in the region.

On Monday, five boats, including the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, two destroyers, and a cruiser left Norfolk, Virginia, for Europe’s Sixth Fleet region on a routine mission. The ships’ departure raises the prospect of the US keeping both the Truman and the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln based in the Arabian Gulf if more violence flares up.

“As a result of a rising conflict in the Middle East and to take all measurably conceivable precautions, we are deploying a minimal number of additional U.S. military personnel to the region as reinforcement forces are already present,” Ryder said. However, because of operational security concerns, I will not discuss or give details on this one.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday recorded a video message telling Lebanese civilians to flee their homes for the upcoming expanded airstrike. He spoke as Israeli warplanes attacked what the country described as Hezbollah positions in southern and eastern Lebanon. 

Washington has ‘clear envisage’ to reinstate order on the Israel-Lebanon border that will be shared with allies and partners this week during the annual United Nations. The official told reporters on the grounds of anonymity since the issue under discussion was top-secret diplomacy of the US and many other countries that both Israel and Hezbollah have been having a desire for an “out-of-war plan.”

The official could not elaborate on the “concrete ideas” because he stated they had not been discussed with allies and partners for what he referred to as a general feasibility test of how likely the ideas would succeed.

It is for this reason that the State Department has encouraged American citizens to leave Lebanon due to this escalating risk of a regional war. “Because of ongoing Hezbollah-Israel violence and frequent explosions in Lebanon, including the capital city of Beirut, in the past weeks—minutes that will be scarce and commercial options fewer soon—the U.S. Embassy advises U.S. citizens to leave Lebanon,” the State Department warned on Saturday.

Ryder wouldn’t specify whether these extra forces might be used to evacuate Americans if necessary. Washington decided that the U.S. may keep the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East or send it to Asia-Pacific next, probably within the week.

The United States has not had two carrier strike groups in the Middle East at the same time very often in the last few years. But as fighting between Israel and Iran-backed militants in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon has intensified in recent weeks, the Biden administration has directed the Navy to overlap the carriers and their strike groups for several weeks on at least a couple of occasions.