US warships head to Middle East amid Iran tensions

• USS Abraham Lincoln moves from Asia-Pacific: US officials.
• Say other assets to arrive in ME in coming days.
• Trump says Iran ‘can’t do the nuclear’.

WASHINGTON: A US military aircraft carrier strike group and other assets will arrive in the Middle East region in the coming days, two US officials said on Thursday, even as President Donald Trump voiced hopes of avoiding new military action against Iran.

US warships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, several destroyers and fighter aircraft, started moving from the Asia-Pacific last week as tensions between Iran and the United States soared following a severe crackdown on protests across Iran in recent months.

One of the officials said additional air defence systems were also being considered for the Middle East. The United States often increases troop levels in the region at moments of heightened tension, something experts note can be entirely defensive in nature.

However, the US military staged a major build-up last summer ahead of its June strikes against Iran’s nuclear programme, and later boasted about how it kept its intention to strike a secret.

Trump had repeatedly threatened to intervene against Iran over the recent killings of protesters there, but demonstrations dwindled last week and Trump’s rhetoric on Iran has since eased. He has shifted his focus to other geopolitical issues, including his pursuit of Greenland.

On Wednesday, Trump said he hoped there would not be further US military action in Iran, but said the United States would act if Tehran resumed its nuclear programme.

“They can’t do the nuclear,” Trump told CNBC in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, referring to major US air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June 2025. “If they do it, it’s going to happen again.”

It has now been at least seven months since the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, last verified Iran’s stock of highly enriched uranium. Its own guidance says such checks should be carried out monthly.

Iran must file a report to the IAEA on what happened at the sites struck by the United States and on nuclear material believed to have been there, including an estimated 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level. That is enough material, if enriched further, for 10 nuclear bombs, according to an IAEA yardstick.

It remains unclear whether protests in Iran could surge again. The demonstrations began on December 28 as modest protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar over economic hardship and quickly spread nationwide.