Australia Deploys Military Assets to the Middle East, For What Purpose?

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the country’s ‘military assets’ have been deployed to the Middle East as part of emergency planning amid rising tensions in the region. According to several Australian officials cited by AFP on Thursday 5 March 2026, the deployment aims to evacuate Australian citizens from the area. Countries have been rushing to evacuate their nationals from the Middle East this week after the United States and Israel launched a joint strike against Iran that killed hundreds of people, including the country’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and triggered a regional war. Tehran retaliated by striking targets in Israel and Gulf states hosting U.S. forces. Albanese told the Australian Parliament on Thursday 5 March that his government had dispatched six crisis-response teams to the Middle East. ‘And we have deployed military assets as part of our emergency planning earlier this week,’ he said. ‘I am grateful to Australians who are going into dangerous situations to assist fellow Australians,’ Albanese told Parliament on Thursday local time. Albanese did not provide further details on the type of Australian military assets deployed to the Middle East. However, several Canberra officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Australia has deployed a heavy transport aircraft and an aerial refuelling aircraft to the Middle East as part of the plan to evacuate its citizens. The officials said the best way for Australians to return home is by commercial flights. On Wednesday 4 March, the first evacuation flight from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, landed in Sydney. Australia had previously said that about 115,000 of its citizens were in the Middle East. In addition to Australia, New Zealand had earlier sent two military aircraft to the Middle East on Thursday 5 March as part of preparations to evacuate its nationals from the region.