STORY: A U.S. military aircraft carrier strike group and other assets will arrive in the Middle East region in the coming days, two U.S. officials said on Thursday (January 22), even as U.S. President Donald Trump voices hopes of avoiding new military action against Iran.

Trump said on Thursday there was a "big force" going toward Iran and he was watching the country "very closely."

U.S. 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 defense systems were also being eyed for the Middle East. The United States often increases U.S. troop levels in the Middle East at moments of heightened regional tensions, something that experts note can be entirely defensive in nature.

However, the U.S. military staged a major buildup last summer ahead of its June strikes against Iran's nuclear program, 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 protests dwindled last week and Trump's rhetoric regarding Iran has eased. He has turned his gaze on other geopolitical issues, including his pursuit of Greenland.

On Wednesday (January 21), Trump said he hoped there would not be further U.S. military action in Iran, but said the United States would act if Tehran resumed its nuclear program.

"They can't do the nuclear," Trump told CNBC in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, noting major U.S. air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities in June 2025. "If they do it, it's going to happen again."

It is now at least seven months since the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, last verified Iran's stock of highly enriched uranium. Its own guidance is that it should be done monthly.

Iran must file a report to the IAEA on what happened to those sites that were struck by the United States and nuclear material thought to be 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 is unclear whether protests in Iran could also surge again. The protests began on December 28 as modest demonstrations in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar over economic hardship and quickly spread nationwide.

The U.S.-based HRANA rights group said it has so far verified 4,519 unrest-linked deaths, including 4,251 protesters, 197 security personnel, 35 people aged under 18 and 38 bystanders who it says were neither protesters nor security personnel.

HRANA has 9,049 additional deaths under review. An Iranian official told Reuters the confirmed death toll until Sunday was more than 5,000, including 500 members of the security forces.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

VIDEO SHOWS: U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SPEAKING ON BOARD AIR FORCE ONE

RESENDING WITH COMPLETE STORY

SHOWS: IN AIR (JANUARY 22, 2026)(WHITE HOUSE - Access all)

1. U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP LISTENING TO REPORTER’S QUESTION ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE

2. WHITE FLASH

3. (SOUNDBITE)(English) U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

REPORTER ASKING: "Where are the things now with Iran, the US has got sizable military assets?"

TRUMP: “You know, we have a lot of ships going that direction just in case, we have a big flotilla going in that direction. And we'll see what happens. We have a big force going toward Iran. I'd rather not see anything happen, but we're watching them very closely. I stopped 837 hangings on Thursday and they would have been dead. Every one of them would have been hung. This is like from a thousand years ago. This is an ancient culture. Very smart people, by the way. But it's an ancient culture. 837 mostly young men were going to be hung on Thursday and I said, 'if you hang those people, you're going to be hit harder than you've ever been hit.' It'll make what we did to your Iran nuclear look like peanuts. And an hour before this horrible thing was going to take place. They canceled it and they actually said they canceled it. They didn’t postpone it, they canceled it. So that was a good sign. But we have an armada, we have a massive, we have a massive fleet heading in that direction and maybe we won't have to use it, we will see.”

4. WHITE FLASH

5. (SOUNDBITE)(English) U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

6. REPORTER ASKING: “Would you like the supreme leader to step down or to call an exile?”

TRUMP: “I don't want to get into that. But they know that we're looking. There's a lot of killing going on."

REPORTER ASKING: “You said today if they want to talk and we’ll talk, so if you set something up and they ask you... ?”

TRUMP: “You know, we’ve talked to them a lot, they should have made a deal before we hit them with the nuclear, because we, that was a devastating hit because that whole area is out of play. And if they try to do it again, they're going to have to go to another area. We'll hit them there, too, just as easily, much more easily, because that was very advanced. They were building that for ten years and they'd have to start anew. So that was a total obliteration.”

7. WHITE FLASH

8. (SOUNDBITE)(English) U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, SAYING:

REPORTER ASKING: Are you still planning to go ahead with those tariffs that you had mentioned?

TRUMP: “With whom?”

REPORTER: "Tariffs those affecting by businesses in Iran, the 25% tariffs."

TRUMP: “We're doing that, we're doing that. If you do business with Iran, you're going to have a tariff of 45%."

9. WHITE FLASH

10. TRUMP SPEAKING (NOT A SOUNDBITE)