"15 December:  DEBKAfile’s military sources report key American military movements in the last two weeks in the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Middle East that radically shift the strategic focus of the US war on terror westward, bringing Iraq, Lebanon and its Syrian-controlled Beqaa Valley into range.

The US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk is heading out of the Arabian Sea, its task in Afghanistan as a floating command center for air and marine forces passing to Kuwait and combining with the Third Army command that is moving out of Atlanta, Georgia. The 70,000-strong US Third Army is being transferred to Kuwait with several hundred Abrams and Bradley tanks. This relocation of strength ought to be wound up in early January. Third Army units will be taking up positions at additional points in the Middle East. Elements of its elite 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions will be posted in US bases in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, centering on the giant Sharm el-Sheikh air base at the southern tip of Sinai, with the northern Red Sea, western Saudi Arabia and southern Jordan in its sights. Reserves of those two Third Army divisions are on notice to report after New Year’s Day for duty in Sharm el-Sheikh. The action is tentatively scheduled for mid-January."