TEHRAN, Aug 3: Fears of a regional Middle East war grew on Saturday after the assassination of Hamas's political leader, blamed on Israel, triggered vows of vengeance from Iran-backed Middle East groups.
The United States said it would move additional warships and fighter jets to the region as the Iran-aligned "Axis of Resistance" readied its response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh.
The groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into the nearly 10-month war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas.
Iran on Saturday said it expects one of those groups, Lebanon's Hezbollah, to hit deeper inside Israel and to no longer be confined to military targets.
With such talk growing, the Pentagon said it was bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect US personnel and defend Israel.
An aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln will replace one helmed by the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the region, the Pentagon said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and areas under United States European Command, as well as a new fighter squadron to the Middle East.
On Friday, thousands of people in Qatar attended funeral prayers for Haniyeh, who was buried north of the capital Doha two days after his death.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Saturday said he was killed by a "short-range projectile" fired "from outside the accommodation area" where he was staying.
Haniyeh had been in Iran to attend the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.
Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of the attack, has not directly commented on it.
The killing of the Qatar-based Haniyeh is among a series of tit-for-tat attacks since April that had already heightened fears of a regional conflagration.
His death came hours after Israel struck south Beirut, killing the Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.
Haniyeh's deputy was killed in south Beirut early this year in a strike which a US defence official said Israel carried out.
In another high-profile killing, Israel's army on Thursday confirmed that an air strike in July killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in Gaza.
Israel "delivered crushing blows to all our enemies", said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week. —AFP
