BRITAIN is preparing to send an aircraft carrier to the Red Sea to blast Houthi targets in Yemen with F-35 Lightning jets.
Defence minister James Heappey gave a “whopping great clue” that one of the Navy’s two carriers would get orders to steam into battle.
Both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are tied alongside in Portsmouth despite attacks by Iran-backed rebels against cargo ships off the coast of Yemen.
Heappey said the Royal Navy’s most formidable warships weren’t needed while the American carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower was there.
The US Eisenhower, known as Ike, has repeatedly scrambled its fleet of embarked F/A-18 Super Hornets to hit Houthi targets.
Britain has joined the strikes on land by launching RAF Typhoon jets in a 3200 mile round trip from Cyprus.
Heappey signalled the UK aircraft carriers were braced to relieve the USS Eisenhower when it needed time in port.
He said: “With the Ike on station – the Eisenhower on station – and with jets available from Akrotiri, that we were able to meet the challenge as it is now.
“That’s not to say that when the Eisenhower goes home, if we were needed to plug a gap in US deployments, or if the situation deteriorates and we need more, that we wouldn’t [send a British carrier].”
Pressed on whether Britain would deploy a carrier, he said: “I’ve given you a whopping great clue in my previous answer.
“The fact is the Eisenhower can’t stay there forever. And so there’s a thing about just maintaining a carrier presence in the region where we might cooperate with the Americans to provide a capability there.”
It comes as an Iran-backed terror chief tonight announced the end his Iraq-based militia’s attacks on US assets inside both Syria and Iraq.
Hezbollah Brigades Secretary-General al-Hamidawi said military operations against the US had been suspended and they will find “new ways” to support Gaza.
He said: “As we announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces – in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government – we will continue to defend our people in Gaza in other ways.”
The Hezbollah Brigades are a group affiliated with the Hashed al-Shaabi, an alliance of Iran-backed former paramilitary groups now integrated in Iraq’s regular armed forces.
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