The USS Enterprise is to return to Norfolk, Virginia  ALSO NATO hits Yugoslav political institutions for 3rd day Red Cross says Yugoslavia won't allow visit to POWs NATO marks 50th anniversary amid echoes of Balkan war Kosovar men, feared victims of massacres, appear at border  MESSAGE BOARD Crisis in Kosovo

April 23, 1999
Web posted at: 2:42 p.m. EDT (1842 GMT)

In this story: 'A new class of targets' RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States has decided not to add a second aircraft carrier to the NATO naval force attacking Yugoslavia, the Pentagon announced on Friday. As a result, the USS Enterprise is coming home, while another carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, will remain in the fight.

The Enterprise, currently sailing in the Mediterranean Sea and previously in the Persian Gulf, has 5,500 sailors and 75 aircraft aboard.

It will return to its home port at Norfolk, Virginia, in early May as scheduled rather than join the air war, said Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon. "She's coming home," he said.

Officials had been considering diverting the Enterprise to the Adriatic Sea as part of a strengthening of U.S. and allied air power for Operation Allied Force. But the Navy prevailed in its argument that the carrier and its battle group of surface ships and submarines should return on time.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt battle group is operating in the NATO campaign, along with British and French carriers.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced Friday it would send 2,000 more troops, 15 more tanks, 14 more Bradley fighting vehicles, and 9 more anti-personnel missile systems to Tirana, Albania to reinforce a battalion of 24 Apache attack helicopters.

The additional deployments will begin early next week and bring the number of U.S. ground troops in Albania to 5,300.

Bacon says transformers were targeted because they supply power to military facilities

The decision to bring the Enterprise home came as NATO further escalated its air campaign, attacking targets -- such as Friday's strike on the headquarters of Serbia's government-run television -- the allies consider part of Yugoslavia's political power structure.

In addition, sea-launched cruise missiles struck two electric power transformers in the Belgrade area overnight, Bacon said.

"It is a new class of targets," he said at a briefing during which he announced that allied warplanes flew 434 sorties Thursday despite bad weather.

The electric power transformers were struck by Tomahawk cruise missiles, which use satellites for precise guidance.

Bacon insisted that both transformers were hit chiefly because they supply power to military command and control facilities linked to the Yugoslav army.

But he conceded that the electrical targets were "dual use" and that hitting them would cause further inconvenience to civilians, such as the earlier destruction of a number of bridges over the Danube River by NATO warplanes.

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.