WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday overrode a plea agreement reached earlier this week for the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks^[1] and two other defendants, reinstating them as death-penalty cases.

The move comes two days after the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, announced that the official appointed to oversee the war court, retired Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, had approved plea deals with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accused accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, in the attacks.

Letters sent to families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the al-Qaida attacks^[2] said the plea agreement stipulated the three would serve life sentences at most.

Austin wrote in an order^[3] released Friday night that “in light of the significance of the decision,” he had decided that the authority to make a decision on accepting the plea agreements was his. He nullified Escallier’s approval.

Some families of the attack’s victims condemned the deal for cutting off any possibility of full trials and possible death penalties. Republicans were quick to fault the Biden administration for the deal, although the White House said after it was announced it had no knowledge of it.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a member of the Armed Services Committee, earlier Friday had condemned the plea deal on social media as “disgraceful." Cotton said he had introduced legislation that would mandate the 9/11 defendants face trial and the possibility of the death penalty.

Mohammed, whom the U.S. describes as the main plotter of the attack that crashed hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, and the other two defendants had been expected to formally enter their pleas under the deal as soon as next week.

The U.S. military commission overseeing the cases of five defendants in the Sept. 11 attacks has been stuck in pre-trial hearings and other preliminary court action since 2008. The torture that the defendants underwent while in CIA custody has been among the challenges slowing the cases, and left the prospect of full trials and verdicts still uncertain, in part because of the inadmissibility of evidence linked to the torture.

J. Wells Dixon, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who has represented defendants at Guantanamo as well as other detainees there who have been cleared of any wrongdoing, had welcomed the plea bargains as the only feasible way to resolve the long-stalled and legally fraught 9/11 cases.

Dixon accused Austin on Friday of “bowing to political pressure and pushing some victim family members over an emotional cliff" by rescinding the plea deals.

Lawyers for the two sides have been exploring a negotiated resolution to the case for about 1 1/2 years. President Joe Biden blocked an earlier proposed plea bargain in the case last year,^[4] when he refused to offer requested presidential guarantees that the men would be spared solitary confinement and provided trauma care for the torture they underwent while in CIA custody.

A fourth Sept. 11 defendant at Guantanamo had been still negotiating on a possible plea agreement.

The military commission last year ruled the fifth defendant mentally unfit to stand trial. A military medical panel cited post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis, and linked it to torture and solitary confinement in four years in CIA custody before transfer to Guantanamo.

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Associated Press writer Tara Copp contributed.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department will move a fighter jet squadron to the Middle East and maintain an aircraft carrier in the region, the Pentagon said Friday, as President Joe Biden made good on his promise to beef up the American military presence to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies and safeguard U.S. troops.

In a statement, the department said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the European and Middle East regions and is taking steps to send more land-based ballistic missile defense weapons there.

The shifts come as U.S. leaders worry about escalating violence in the Middle East in response to recent attacks by Israel on Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, which triggered threats of retaliation.

Biden in a call Thursday afternoon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed new U.S. military deployments to protect against possible attacks from ballistic missiles and drones, according to the White House. In April, U.S. forces intercepted dozens of missiles and drones fired by Iran against Israel and helped down nearly all of them.

The assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh^[1] in Tehran on Wednesday and senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur^[2] in Beirut on Tuesday risk escalating the fighting into an all-out regional war^[3], with Iran also threatening to respond after the attack on its territory. Israel has vowed to kill Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack^[4], which sparked the war.

Austin is ordering the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which is in the Gulf of Oman but scheduled to come home later this summer. That decision suggests the Pentagon has decided to keep a carrier consistently in the region as a deterrent against Iran at least until next year.

The Pentagon did not say where the fighter jet squadron was coming from or where it would be based in the Middle East. A number of allies in the region are often willing to base U.S. military forces but don’t want it made public.

The White House in a statement said Biden “reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.”

Earlier Friday, Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters that moves were in the works. She said Austin “will be directing multiple” force movements to provide additional support to Israel and increase protection for U.S. troops in the region.

Military and defense officials have been considering a wide array of options, from additional ships and fighter aircraft squadrons to added air defense systems or unmanned assets. In many cases the U.S. does not provide details because host nations are very sensitive about the presence of additional U.S. forces and don’t want those movements made public.

It’s unclear what new ships would move to the Middle East.

The U.S. has had a consistent warship presence there and in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, including two Navy destroyers, the USS Roosevelt and the USS Bulkeley, as well as the USS Wasp and the USS New York. The Wasp and the New York are part of the amphibious ready group and carry a Marine expeditionary unit that could be used if any evacuation of U.S. personnel is required.

In addition, a U.S. official said that two U.S Navy destroyers that are currently in the Middle East will be heading north up the Red Sea toward the Mediterranean Sea. At least one of those could linger in the Mediterranean if needed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements.

Israeli defense officials say they are coordinating with the U.S. and U.K. ahead of an expected strike by Iran, setting the stage for a repeat of a similar attack by Tehran in April that was repelled by allies.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement Friday that he spoke with his American and British counterparts, Lloyd Austin and John Healey, and provided “a situational assessment in light of recent security developments.”

Fear has risen of a spillover from the nearly 10-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as Iran threatened retaliation for the assassination in Tehran this week of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Iran-backed group.

A similar spike in tensions about four months ago saw Iran and Israel trade direct fire for the first time. Almost 300 Iranian drones and missiles were fired but most were destroyed by air defenses from Israel, the US and several allies. Israel’s drone strike in response was contained and appeared symbolic to avoid escalation.

This time, Iran’s response may be more fierce, given the embarrassment of having a foreign dignitary and top ally assassinated in the heart of its capital. Among its options are another direct assault on Israel, stepped-up attacks by its proxies in the region or hitting Israeli targets elsewhere in the world.

Austin, who earlier this week reiterated that the U.S. “certainly will help defend Israel” if attacked, spoke with Gallant and is weighing moves to reinforce America’s presence in the region, the Pentagon said Friday. White House spokesman John Kirby said earlier in a CNN interview that the Pentagon is ensuring it has “the right resources and capabilities” in the region, including both equipment and personnel.

Israel has stopped short of confirming it was behind killing Haniyeh, but it hasn’t pushed back against the claim either. His death also came hours after Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, Fuad Shukr.

President Joe Biden on Thursday assured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of “new defensive US military deployments,” the White House said in a statement. Biden later told reporters he also pressed the Israeli leader in a “very direct” call to agree to a cease-fire in Gaza with Hamas.

Biden is trying to use his last months in office to end the war, which has caused huge political divisions in the U.S. He’s struggled to influence Netanyahu’s war strategy, seeking to pressure him publicly and privately but declining to use as leverage the billions of dollars in US military aid.

“Meeting with senior leaders across the region, including today in Israel, we urged all sides to show restraint and dial down the tension at this critical moment,” UK’s Healey said in a statement. “We also need to see an immediate cease-fire, hostages released and aid getting in in sufficient quantity to alleviate the suffering in Gaza.”

While the destruction and death toll among Palestinians in Gaza has drawn international criticism of Israel, Netanyahu has focused on the existential threat to his country and the region from Iran and its proxies in the so-called Axis of Resistance, which includes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both designated terrorist organizations by the US, as well as the Houthis in Yemen.

Netanyahu referred to the coordinated April defense in a controversial speech last week to a joint meeting of the US Congress, calling it a possible template for a NATO-accord he termed the “Abraham Alliance.”

Gallant in his statement Friday said he “emphasized the importance of establishing a coalition in Israel’s defense against Iran’s proxies.”

(With assistance from Jordan Fabian, Alex Wickham and Peter Martin.)

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