A U.S. aircraft carrier and several additional warships approached the Middle East on Monday, defense officials said, as President Donald Trump and his advisers weigh potential military strikes on Iran following the recent killing of thousands of Iranian civilians in protests.
The Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group reached the U.S. Central Command area of operations, said a U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations.
The vessel and three escorting destroyers were in the western Indian Ocean, too far to easily strike Iran, but expected to pull closer in coming days — moving to either the Gulf of Oman or North Arabian Sea.
The buildup had been anticipated for days, after Trump administration officials this month redirected the carrier and several other warships escorting it from the South China Sea.
Trump nearly approved strikes against Iran earlier this month, only to cool to the idea on Jan. 14, as some of his advisers and Middle East partners warned that it could be difficult to manage subsequent counterstrikes from Iran and other violence without more combat power in the region.
Iran has placed its forces on “high alert” as it watches the U.S. military buildup in the region, said a senior Iranian official who briefed reporters Friday.
“This military buildup — we hope that it is not something for real confrontation — but we are ready for a worst-case scenario,” the official said.
The official also warned that in the event of a U.S. attack, Iranian retaliation would be far more devastating than it was during the 12-day war with Israel, a conflict that he said Iran did not consider to be “existential.” Now, he said, Iran considers “the nature of the threat so different.”
“Iran tried to be very restrained, predictable and measured in its responses to both Israelis and Americans,” the official said. “This time, we take any attack — limited, unlimited, surgical, kinetic … whatever they call it — as an all-out war against us. And we will respond in the hardest way possible.”
Concerns about the scale and scope of Iranian retaliation appeared to play a central role in Trump’s decision-making. Fearful of their vulnerability to Iranian attacks, U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf lobbied Trump to hold off on an attack against Iran.
The carrier strike group is led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which is carrying dozens of fighter jets and nearly 5,000 sailors. Along with it are the destroyers USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., USS Spruance, and USS Michael Murphy, each carrying dozens of missiles and air defenses. The ships made their way across the Indian Ocean over the past several days after traveling through the Strait of Malacca.
Trump, speaking to reporters late Thursday on Air Force One, appeared to allude to the forthcoming arrival of the carrier strike group, saying that a “massive fleet” of U.S. warships was heading to the region.
“We have a big flotilla going in that direction, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said while returning to Washington from a conference with world leaders in Davos, Switzerland. “We have a big force going toward Iran. I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely.”
Over the past two weeks, Iranian government forces have violently quelled the massive protests that Trump vowed to support. Those who risked their lives inside Iran to demonstrate have said they feel betrayed by the U.S. president’s inaction.
Trump said Iran halted executions of protesters following his threats of force, but Iranian officials rebutted his claim, stating that the country’s judicial system operates independently. More than 20,000 people were detained during massive waves of arrests carried out under the government crackdown, according to human rights groups.
No U.S. aircraft carrier has been in the Middle East since October, when the USS Nimitz departed the region. The USS Gerald R. Ford and several warships traveling with it were ordered to sail from European waters to the Caribbean Sea in October, ensuring a “carrier gap” in the Middle East as the Trump administration ramped up military operations in Latin America that early this month included the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a raid spearheaded by the Pentagon’s elite Delta Force.
The Pentagon has since continued to build up forces in the Middle East. The USS Roosevelt, a destroyer, had sailed to the Persian Gulf as the Trump administration deliberated a potential strike earlier this month, but it has since moved through the Red Sea into the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Positioned there, it could still assist in the defense of Israel, were Iran to launch retaliatory drones or ballistic missiles. Two other destroyers — the USS Mitscher and the USS McFaul — were in the North Arabian Sea in recent days.
The Pentagon also recently moved a squadron of F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets from the Lakenheath air base in Britain to the Middle East, supplementing U.S. warplanes already in the region. F-15s with the same unit — the 494th Fighter Squadron — played a key role in the defense of Israel from an April 2024 attack by Iran, shooting down one-way attack drones.
Britain also recently moved some of its Typhoon fighter jets to Qatar in a defensive posture, the British Ministry of Defense said in a social media post.
Another aircraft carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, is expected to deploy in coming months. It was off the Atlantic coast in recent days, with pilots performing landing operations required to qualify pilots ahead of a deployment, according to a Navy social media post. It was not clear where the Bush will deploy.
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