Southern California Marines bolster Middle East crisis response unit

Reporting from San Diego —  Marines from bases at Camp Pendleton, Twentynine Palms and the Miramar air station are deploying to the Middle East to boost the military’s “crisis response capability,” the Marine Corps announced Tuesday.

The 2,300-Marine force will be spread throughout host countries in the U.S. Central Command area, the Marine Corps said.

The force will support security “cooperation events, such as exercises, as well as respond to contingencies,” according to the Central Command.

Plans for the crisis response unit began in summer of 2013, months before the assault on Iraq by Sunni militants under the banner of setting up an Islamic caliphate, the Marine Corps said.

The force will be headquartered in Kuwait, Col. Kenneth DeTreux told the newspaper Stars and Stripes. Kuwait was the staging point for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The force, called a Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force, will include infantry Marines, fixed-wing and rotary aircraft, and headquarters and logistics personnel.

The largest number of Marines will be the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment at Twentynine Palms. Deploying from Camp Pendleton are Marines from the 5th Marine Regiment headquarters group and a combat logistics group.

The aircraft, and supporting Marines, are from the Marine Medium Tiltroter Squadron 363 of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, based at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. A refueler transport squadron from Fort Worth will also deploy.

Most of the Marines have already deployed. Initial plans are for the Marines to spend a seven-month deployment before being replaced by other units.

A similar special purpose force is stationed in Spain to support the U.S. Africa Command. That force was organized in the wake of the attack on the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya.

The new crisis response unit will be in addition to the more than 1,000 Marines from the Camp Pendleton-based 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit now on ships in the Persian Gulf region.

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