U.S. B-1B bomber flies over Mideast amid Iran tensions

Fighter jets from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia flew alongside the bomber.

Iranian state media did not immediately acknowledge the flyover. Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The flyover comes after a pattern of such flights by nuclear-capable B-52 bombers since the Trump administration as a show of force to Iran. Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew America from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Tehran agree to drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

In the time since, Iran has abandoned all the limits of the deal and drastically reduced the ability of international inspectors to keep watch over their program. While Iran insists its program is peaceful, the U.S. intelligence agencies, Western inspectors and others say Tehran had a structured military nuclear weapons program through the end of 2003.

President Joe Biden has said he’s willing to re-enter the nuclear deal, but talks in Vienna have stalled as a hard-line protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took over as president. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday he still saw hope for diplomacy in this situation.

Biden sending a B1-B bomber into the region allows him to send “a clear message of reassurance” to regional allies, as the U.S. Air Force’s Central Command put it on Twitter. But it doesn’t involved a nuclear-capable bomber.

The B-1B came from the 37th Bomb Squadron based at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.