Flight trackers have spotted a fleet of US air tankers crossing the Atlantic just as Donald Trump prepares to meet with generals and admirals on Tuesday.
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) accounts on X reported that ‘roughly a dozen’ US Air Force KC-135R/T Stratotankers were making the journey on Sunday night, with several en route to RAF Mildenhall – a major USAF base in England.
The presence of air tankers can indicate that the US or NATO is addressing an urgent military requirement for refueling capacity for fighter jets.
The deployment carries ominous weight, according to three Defense Department sources — two former, one current — who spoke to Daily Mail on condition of anonymity.
The last time the US moved tankers in comparable numbers was five days before American warplanes struck Iran‘s nuclear facilities. Trump is meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.
The movement of the Stratotankers comes as Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are preparing to hold a shadowy meeting of the nation’s top military leaders at Quantico, Virginia, on Tuesday.
The unprecedented meeting, first reported by the Washington Post last week, has raised alarm. Hundreds of generals and admirals, including those in active conflict zones, have been summoned from around the world — with no details of what the substance of the summit will be.
Behnam Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies tells Daily Mail, while ‘correlation is not causation’, he can’t help but think of the last time there was a mass tanker deployment by the United States.
Open-source intelligence (OSINT) X accounts reported that ‘roughly a dozen’ US Air Force KC-135R/T Stratotankers were flying making the journey on Sunday night, with several en route to RAF Mildenhall – a major USAF base in England
Trump greets Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday
‘Soon after that something went boom in the United States. Critically, in Operation Midnight Hammer, the Trump administration executed a decoy or deception effort to mask the flight of the B-2 bombers to Iran,’ Taleblu said, emphasizing that he is the only U.S. president in two decades to deploy over military force against Iranian nuclear facilities.
‘Big military movements on his watch are something to keep an eye on,’ Taleblu added.
A former State Department diplomacy consultant tells Daily Mail one explanation could be the U.S. responding to Russian aerial and drone probes in the Baltic Sea, especially against Denmark, just days after they had to close their largest airport.
‘Denmark’s inability to defend its own airspace underscores White House concerns that it is unable to protect and defend its far larger and distant Greenland territory from increasing Chinese & Russian joint air and naval patrols in the emerging Arctic theater of strategic competition,’ said John Sitilides, National Security Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
The ongoing U.S. military movements may also be linked to Exercise Cobra Warrior 25-2, a large-scale NATO training event running from September 12 to October 2 over the North Sea.
This biannual operation could explain the visible surge in aerial activity as allied forces train for integrated military operations.
Ultimately, the timing of the deployments are raising eyebrows, aligning with Hegseth’s unexpected meeting in Quantico with top military officials in northern Virginia tomorrow.
A source close to Hegseth says that even the generals and admirals involved in the meeting still do not know the agenda details, entering the meeting blind just a day before they are expected to have their roundtable discussions.
An F-35A Lightning II receives fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker from the 28th Expeditionary Aerial Refueling Squadron, at an undisclosed location (USAF file photo)
The purpose of the meeting remains undisclosed, cloaked in secrecy even among those typically in the know, with the former Pentagon official assessing it ‘could be anything from a push–up contest to a meeting on national security.’
Trump announced Sunday that he will attend the quickly organized global summit of the nation’s top military commanders.
This decision sets the stage for a rare and potentially consequential interaction between the president and senior U.S. military leadership, even though the president framed it Sunday as a ‘nice meeting’ with a ‘good message.’
