WASHINGTON, Feb 28: The United States on Thursday ordered the deployment of radar-evading batwing B-2 stealth bombers and directed a sixth aircraft carrier to sail to the Gulf region.

The navy’s Third Fleet said the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz, based in San Diego, will head to the Gulf region on Monday. Five U.S. carriers, along with their battle groups of missile-firing warships, already are in the Gulf and Mediterranean within striking distance of Iraq.

In Washington, Navy officials said the Nimitz was scheduled to replace the carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Gulf on routine rotation, but that no exchange date had been set.

Lt. Matt Hasson, a spokesman at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, said a B-2 deployment order had been received, but would not say how many of the 21 stealth bombers located at the base would deploy or where they might go.

At the Pentagon, another air force official said several of the advanced warplanes, each capable of carrying up to 20 900-kg satellite-guided bombs, were expected to leave in the coming days, but would not be more specific.

The U.S. air force has built shelters for its most advanced bomber on the island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, and in Britain.

The Pentagon already has deployed B-1 bombers and radar-evading F-117 stealth fighters to the Gulf region along with hundreds of other air force and navy planes in a massive military buildup near Iraq.

The B-2 “Spirit” was not used in the 1991 invasion, making its debut in combat operations in the Kosovo campaign in 1999. It flew non-stop all the way from the base in Missouri, attacked targets in Yugoslavia and returned to the base.

The B-2 also saw action in the opening three days of the bombing in Afghanistan launched weeks after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. In that operation, a B-2 flew one of among its longest missions to date from Whiteman to Afghanistan and back, the air force said.—Reuters