US B-2 Bombers Head to Middle East Amid Tensions with Iran and Houthis

A significant force of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers looks to be currently wending its way to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Satellite imagery shows at least three C-17 cargo planes and 10 aerial refueling tankers forward-deployed in the last 48 hours to the highly strategic British territory, which has been used as a staging point for U.S. strikes in the Middle East on multiple occasions in the past.

The build-up comes amid a new surge in U.S. strikes targeting the Houthis and growing warnings to Iran from the Trump administration over support for the Yemeni militants and Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

The crews of two B-2 bombers, callsigns Pitch 11 and Pitch 14, could be heard communicating with air traffic controllers in Australia earlier today in publicly available audio. The crew of Pitch 11 confirms the presence of a third bomber, as well. The trio of bombers appears to have refueled in flight over Australia while heading westward.

A fourth B-2, callsign Pitch 13, landed at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii yesterday after declaring an emergency in flight. Video subsequently emerged showing that aircraft being met on the ground by a crash truck, but the nature of the emergency remains unknown.

Additional air traffic control recordings indicate that additional B-2s, using the callsign Abba, departed Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri earlier today also bound for Diego Garcia. The Air Force’s entire force of 20 B-2 bombers is based at Whiteman.

“A B-2 Spirit bomber arrived at Hickam Air Force Base,” Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) told TWZ today in response to questions about the in-flight emergency and recent B-2 movements in the Indo-Pacific region more broadly.

“U.S. Strategic Command, its components, and subordinate units routinely conduct global operations in coordination with other combatant commands, services, and participating U.S. government agencies to deter, detect and, if necessary, defeat strategic attacks against the United States and its allies,” AFGSC added. “To preserve operational security, we do not discuss details about exercises or operations.”

Major movements of C-17s and tankers to the Indian Ocean island, as well as to Hickam in Hawaii and Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, look to have started last week, according to online flight tracking data and information from the international Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS).

Separately, Politico reported last week that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had extended the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman‘s current Middle Eastern deployment and directed another carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, to join it in the region. Online flight tracking data and air traffic control recordings have pointed to a recent deployment of Air Force F-35A Joint Strike Fighters to the Middle East, as well.

Overall, what has been observed so far with regard to Diego Garcia represents a force package that is significantly larger than what has typically been associated with routine Bomber Task Force deployments globally, as well as exercises, in recent years.

A deployment of just four B-2s, representing 20 percent of the Air Force’s total fleet of the stealth bombers, to Australia in 2022 was seen as sending a significant signal to China and other potential adversaries, as well as to America’s allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific region. Two years earlier, six B-52s went to Diego Garcia in another show of force in the wake of the U.S. military killing Qasem Soleimani, then head of the Quds Force external operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in neighboring Iraq.

The Indian Ocean island was notably used as a primary launchpad for bomber strikes in the opening phases of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in that country in 2003. Bombers continued to fly combat missions from the Indian Ocean base for some time afterward.

It is very important to note here that Diego Garcia, unlike bases in the Middle East or aircraft carriers operating in the region, is largely out of the reach of the missiles and drones available now to either the Houthis or Iran. Iran’s current longest-range ballistic missiles are generally assessed to have maximum ranges around 1,242 miles (2,000 kilometers). At its shortest, the distance between the Indian Ocean island and Iran is some 2,358 miles (3,795 kilometers).

Diego Garcia’s general location relative to various potential hotspots only adds to its strategic significance. The island’s lagoon is also used to host a U.S. Military Sealift Command Prepositioning Ship Squadron full of military vehicles, ammunition, and other materiel for rapid deployment in the event of any of a host of contingencies.

Staging more than four B-2s at Diego Garcia now would be at least another major show of force aimed squarely at the Middle East. The bombers present a unique mix of capabilities, particularly their ability to penetrate past dense enemy air defenses to carry out ‘bunker buster’ strikes employing 30,000-pound class GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs. MOP, which only the B-2 is currently certified to employ operationally, itself offers a unique conventional option for striking deeply buried and fortified targets, of which there are many in Iran.

B-2 bombers were also used just last October for strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, which also sent a clear message to the group’s benefactors in Tehran, as TWZ highlighted at the time. The Houthis have been waging a campaign against commercial shipping in and around the Red Sea, as well as targeting foreign military forces in the region and launching attacks on Israel, for more than a year now. This has been ostensibly in retaliation for Israeli operations in Gaza following the brazen Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.

“The Biden Administration sat back as a band of pirates – with precision-guided, Iran-provided weaponry – exacted a toll system in one of the most important shipping lanes in the world,” President Donald Trump’s White House declared in a statement just today. “The Trump Administration’s actions to hold the Houthis accountable has been a massive success – and nothing can distract from that unrelenting action to keep Americans safe.”

This follows widespread outcry over The Atlantic‘s now confirmed disclosure that its editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was apparently inadvertently included in a group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, in which top members of the Trump administration discussed imminent strikes on the Houthis earlier this month.

“Any further attack or retaliation by the ‘Houthis’ will be met with great force, and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there,” Trump had also written in a post on his Truth Social social media network back on March 17. “They’re [Iran] dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, ‘Intelligence.’ Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!”