BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

WASHINGTON, United States – The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group has arrived in the Middle East, the US military said on Monday, dramatically boosting American firepower in the region.

The carrier and its accompanying ships were ordered to the region as Iran cracked down on mass protests. While President Donald Trump has since backed away from military action against Tehran, he has insisted all options remain on the table.

The strike group is “currently deployed to the Middle East to promote regional security and stability,” US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the region, said in a post on X.

Trump told Axios in an interview on Monday that the United States has “a big armada next to Iran,” but said Tehran is eager to talk: “They want to make a deal. I know so. They called on numerous occasions.”

A senior US official meanwhile said to reporters during a call that Washington is “open for business” if the Iranians “want to contact us.”

The protests in Iran started in late December, driven by economic grievances, but turned into a mass movement against the Islamic republic, with huge street demonstrations for several days from January 8.

Rights groups have accused authorities of launching an unprecedented crackdown by shooting directly at the protesters under the cover of an internet shutdown.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said on Monday that it had confirmed the deaths of nearly 6,000 people in the wave of protests suppressed by Iran’s security forces, but emphasised the actual toll could be several times higher.

The clerical leadership that took power after the 1979 Islamic revolution remains in place despite the demonstrations, with many opponents of the system looking to outside intervention as the most likely driver of change.

Trump had repeatedly warned Iran that if it killed protesters, the United States would intervene militarily, and also encouraged Iranians to take over state institutions, saying “help is on the way.”

But he pulled back from ordering strikes earlier this month, saying Tehran had halted more than 800 executions under pressure from Washington.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has warned against intervention and said the country was “confident in its own capabilities.”

In apparent reference to the Lincoln, he added: “The arrival of such a battleship is not going to affect Iran’s determination and seriousness to defend the Iranian nation.”