The US has redirected the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, U.S. officials said, as tensions with Iran escalate amid ongoing protests in the country.
The nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carrier changed course more than a week ago and is now en route to the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility, which includes the Persian Gulf and surrounding waters.
The move comes as the Pentagon mulls potential military options in response to Iran’s brutal crackdown on demonstrations, which have resulted in thousands of deaths, with some reports claiming as high as 25,000.
Tehran has put the toll at 3,117, including 2,427 it has labelled “martyrs”, a term used to distinguish members of the security forces and bystanders from those described as “rioters”, which it claims were provoked by the US and Israel.
Trump earlier described the deployment as part of a “big flotilla” heading toward the region “just in case,” while emphasizing a preference to avoid escalation.”
We have a big force going towards Iran,” Trump told reporters last week. “And maybe we won’t have to use it… We have a lot of ships going that direction.”
Addressing the WEF in Davos, Trump said the US attacked Iranian uranium enrichment sites last year to prevent Tehran from making a nuclear weapon. “Can’t let that happen,” Trump said, adding: “And Iran does want to talk, and we’ll talk.”
The Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group includes guided-missile destroyers and cruisers equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles, along with Carrier Air Wing 9, which operates F-35C stealth fighters, F/A-18 Super Hornets, electronic warfare aircraft, and helicopters.
The carrier strike group includes the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., USS Michael Murphy, and USS Spruance. A carrier strike group can also include a nuclear-powered submarine, however its deployment or location has been kept classified.
USS Abraham Lincoln is the fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier and was commissioned on Nov. 11, 1989. The ship completed a scheduled U.S. 5th and 7th Fleet deployment in 2024, returning to San Diego in late December 2024. In August 2025, Abraham Lincoln participated in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command joint exercise Northern Edge 2025 in and around the Gulf of Alaska.
Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the redeployment is intended to bolster deterrence and provide options for a rapid response if the security situation in Iran deteriorates.
The Virginia-class (SSN-774 class) fast-attack submarines are the primary type of nuclear-powered submarines assigned to modern carrier strike groups like Abraham Lincoln’s. They are the newest, stealthiest, and most versatile in the fleet.
Meanwhile, the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group could face a serious threat from Iranian drone swarms.
Cameron Chell, CEO of Draganfly, cautioned that Iran’s growing reliance on cheap drones could endanger high-value U.S. naval assets, including the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group.
“Iran’s drone capabilities are worth well into the tens of millions of dollars,” Chell told Fox News.
“By pairing low-cost warheads with inexpensive delivery platforms, essentially remotely piloted aircraft, Iran has developed an effective asymmetric threat against highly sophisticated military systems.”
“If hundreds are launched in a short period of time, some are almost certain to get through,” Chell said.
“Modern defense systems were not originally designed to counter that kind of saturation attack. For U.S. surface vessels operating near Iran, warships are prime targets.”
“These drones give Iran a very credible way to threaten surface vessels,” he said. “U.S. assets in the region are large, slow-moving, and easily identifiable on radar, which makes them targetable.”
Not just drone threats, the US Navy should be ready to counter Iranian missiles. Iran has several anti-ship missiles with ranges exceeding 1,000 km.
According to Patricia Marins, a prominent defense expert, Iran has also conducted guidance tests to convert its large ballistic missiles into anti-ship variants that could seriously threaten American naval assets.
In addition, in the early 2000s, Iran reportedly acquired at least 12 Kh-55 cruise missiles from Ukraine. The Kh-55, a subsonic air-launched cruise missile with a range of around 3,000 km, could theoretically be adapted for anti-ship roles, but Iran’s focus has shifted to indigenous developments.
Earlier, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had also warned Washington that the force had its “finger on the trigger.”Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a speech on earller, accused the United States and Israel of stoking the protests as a “cowardly revenge… for the defeat in the 12-Day War”.
Guards commander General Mohammad Pakpour warned Israel and the United States “to avoid any miscalculations” and learn from “what they learned in the 12-day imposed war, so that they do not face a more painful and regrettable fate”.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have their finger on the trigger, more prepared than ever, ready to carry out the orders and measures of the supreme commander-in-chief,” he was quoted by state television on the IRGC’s national day.
General Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi, head of Iran’s joint command headquarters, meanwhile, warned that if America attacked, “all US interests, bases and centres of influence” would be “legitimate targets” for Iranian forces.
Efforts to confirm the scale of the toll have been hampered by a nationwide internet shutdown, with monitoring group NetBlocks saying Thursday the blackout had surpassed “two full weeks”.
“All the evidence gradually emerging from inside Iran shows that the real number of people killed in the protests is far higher than the official figure,” said the director of the Iran Human Rights NGO, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, saying the authorities’ toll has “no credibility whatsoever”.
With inputs from Agence France-Presse (AFP)
